Mama Taney's Kitchen

Canning Goodies & The Matrix

2011-09-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

It's that amazing, wonderful time of year again ... canning season! The above photos are just three of recent items we've canned. We've been selling jelly jars of these for $4 each with great success and, more importantly, fantastic feedback!!

We've also been stocking our pantry with canned peaches, applesauce, canned chicken stock (what a miracle in a jar!!), and apple pie filling. That's a first for us, and I am eager to try it in a pie.

Today, we've been making up a batch of spaghetti sauce to can. We haven't made this in over a year due to the kitchen renovation from last year. This year's garden produced nicely though and there is a large stock pot bubbling away on the stove. A friend stopped by and immediately proclaimed that she could smell the garlic I had been roasting to add to the sauce. Of course, she's a garlic aficionado, so I don't doubt that she would be able to pick up the aroma from quite a way off.

I was struck by something though, while I was mixing up the sauce and pureeing it down: how good it tastes. And I don't mean that in a bragging, "oh man, my sauce is awesome" kind of way. I mean, I was just blown away at how GOOD it was because it was REAL. Not store bought.

It is amazing to me how we can actually forget what REAL food tastes like. We think we know, we're sure we know. Then we taste REAL food, and we are awakened. Awakened from a sleep we didn't know we were in. --- Ooohhh ... how very "Matrix", right?

As silly as that sounds, I swear that is really how it is. The first time I tried raw milk I simply knew how right it was. For those of us who cook, it's like when you're trying to perfect a recipe. Suddenly, you get it right. How do you know it's right? You just do.

When you've been eating store bought food, you can think you've eaten, and even created, some very good meals. To some extent, that is a completely accurate statement. I've eaten very good meals that were made from store bought, packaged, processed items.

But then .. then you try something that is homemade. Homegrown. Organic. Fresh off the vine, literally still warm from the sun. And .. well, Morpheus might as well have just given you that magic little red pill. Have you experienced it yet?

Dinner is beckoning me now, so I will leave you with this quote from 'The Matrix':
Morpheus: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Now, Neo replied "The Matrix", but Mama Taney replies "Real Food". :)

Cookin' up a Stingray

2011-07-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read that right. This post begins & took place in Duck, NC. where we were on vacation. We had been fishing from the beach and a friend kept catching skates (not the type you put on your feet to wheel around under a disco ball!). As he was tossing one back he commented how unscrupulous restaurants "cookie cutter" the wings and pass them off as scallops. I pondered that if they tasted like scallops, why weren't we keeping them and eating them? Good point, he acknowledged, and then he agreed we would do so with the next one.

The next one however wasn't a skate. It was a stingray. With the poisonous barb tail. But, a quick look on the ole smart phone revealed they're just as edible as skates. So, he hacked off the tail, let the thing die, and brought it to me. In a cooler. This is my experience with a stingray.

First off, how do you get it out of the cooler without turning into a prancing girl?? I'm not known for being very girly-girl, but I'll admit this had me prancing & flapping about the kitchen like I was trying to fly.

The wings kept turning under. And this is something that can kill you when it's alive. Or when the tail is still on, which it wasn't, but still. Ewww.

I decided that first I should maybe just drain out the cooler.

And that's when the entire thing went sliding out of the cooler and into the sink & I ran, yelping, out of the kitchen. So, Step 1 was solved, it's out of the cooler. Now what?

Well, I was still prancing about. Those wings rolled like slimy tortillas making a stingray burrito. So, naturally, the next logical steps were:

*go ahead and clean the cooler, obviously it would be rude to leave it dirty and smelly, and we don't want to be rude .. so best to go ahead and clean it out

*wash hands, the "slime" seemed to be really clingy

*try to pick up the stingray, watch it fold and slip

*drop stingray back into the sink & then begin flapping around the kitchen

*wash your hands again.

This proceeded on for several long minutes, much to the amusement of friends who were now watching. Time to man-up. I poured myself a stout (more manly, ya know?). I bellied up to the sink, because that is a kinda manly thing to do too. And I faced off with the stingray.

What I had looked up online said to cut the wings off. It showed a nice graphic photo of how to do this which required another swig of beer. I have never prepared a fresh fish before. Never filleted one. Completely new experience.

One note (which was mentioned online) when dealing with a stingray (or skate for that matter) is to make sure you have a solid and stable surface to work on. These things are slippery!!

Another note, which is my own to add, is make sure you have a sharp knife. On vacation, in the rental's kitchen, there were steak knives of decent enough quality, but not so much for carving up this fella. I ended up using a paring knife.

The wings off, this is what the stingray now looks like. I read that you can use a couple other parts (the liver for example), but I'm not familiar with the anatomy of a stingray enough to desire messing around more than this with it.

So, the wings go into a bowl.

Where they are soaked in 2TB lemon juice & a good sprinkle of salt for 10 minutes or so.

The recipes I found online called for barbecuing the wings. Again, being on vacation and of limited kitchen I decided to line a dish with foil, put some bbq sauce (which I just happened to buy on the way down there when we stopped for lunch) both underneath and on top of the wings, fold it all up and cook it in the oven.

That's before the oven. I had the oven on 350 degrees. I had thought they would take quite a while to cook, as I read that cooking them in a pan takes longer than the oven. Luckily, while they were in the oven I happened to talk to one of my brothers and tell him about the experience and how I was "winging it" (get it?!?!). He quickly did a search online for me and found something that said to cook them for 10 minutes. They had been in the oven for 20.

Out of the oven after 20 minutes of cooking at 350 degrees.

Yup, I think it's done. Though I have to admit that the bbq sauce creeped most everyone out because it looked like blood.

Special Note - if you're cooking something like this for the first time, don't cook it in something the color of blood!!

On the plate and ready for trying. It turns out that, once cooked, the skin on this peels right off. VERY easy!! That was nice

A close-up of the now cooked wing. It was nice and flaky. We all tried it and agreed that it wasn't bad.
There aren't bones, which was nice, though there was cartilage, which was easy enough to avoid. In the end I could've likely used less bbq sauce, because the flavor of that was a little overwhelming. Though, the general flavor of the stingray itself seemed a little bland.

Nobody ate a lot of it though. Of course, it wasn't out of the oven and ready for consumption until 11pm, a time by which we had all already had dinner. So that was one reason. Our friend Jesse, who had caught the thing, and I both admitted though that there was a lot of anxiety (at least on our parts) about eating something that could kill you. Potentially. At some point in time. Something none of us had ever eaten or had experience in cooking with.

But, I can now say that I've cooked and eaten stingray. After all, you don't go on vacation to do (and eat!) the same ole stuff you can eat at home anytime, right?

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

2011-04-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

This basic recipe comes from a blog that I absolutely love following, Macheesmo. I tweaked the recipe some, using homemade peanut butter rather than store bought. Wanna know something else cool? I got that recipe from Macheesmo too!! Since I am still tweaking my version I am going to just give you the links to the Macheesmo postings.

*Homemade Peanut Butter Cup Recipe: http://www.macheesmo.com/2009/07/homemade-peanut-butter-cups/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Macheesmo+%28Macheesmo%29

*Homemade Peanut Butter: http://www.macheesmo.com/2010/04/small-batch-peanut-butter/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Macheesmo+%28Macheesmo%29

BUT, I did take photos!! So, here we go .... Peanuts in the food processor. Check it out, chopped up peanuts!!! Ice cream topping anyone?

Semi-sweet chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips along with some butter, melting in a double boiler.

While the chips melted, the peanuts kept blending, I added honey, some vanilla sugar, and some homebrewed Chocolate Stout beer. Keep blending and voila ... peanut butter!

And now, we have melted chocolate too!

Tin foil cups in the muffin pans.

The tin foil cups now "filled" with the melted chocolate, just on the sides and a little bit on the bottom though.

After being popped into the freezer for a few minutes here they are with the chocolate hardened.

Filling them with the peanut butter. Roughly a tablespoon worth.

Beginning to cover the peanut butter with more chocolate. You want to make sure to get the peanut butter covered without making the chocolate on top too thick.

After a few minutes back in the freezer, here is one of the cups, ready for eating.

Ok, well NOW it is ready for eating. The foil was really easy to peel off.

Cut open in half so you can see it a little better. Very yummy.

I still want to tweak this some. Maybe it's been a long day (we didn't start these till after 10pm) but the felt time consuming to make. I would like to make the chocolate easier to work with. However, they are good. And making your own peanut butter REALLY allows you to personalize it as much as you want. ... Cool ..

White Bean Soup with Vegetables

2011-04-10T06:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I attended the 2011 Bits & Pieces Luncheon held at First United Methodist Church in Salem. It was my first year attending the event, which has been held since 1977, and I was doing so on assignment for the paper. There were foods of all types there and the church is selling a cookbook, for $3, containing all the recipes for those foods. At first I had planned on buying a cookbook but then I acknowledged my cookbook addiction and reasoned that I really didn't need yet another cookbook. However, after attending this event I walked home, got $3, and walked right back down there to get one. This is a recipe from that cookbook.

A photo of the White Bean Soup with Vegetables in little cups, ready for sampling.

Spring in Southwestern Virginia is so fickle. One week it is blazing hot, the next it is (literally) freezing cold. A predicted day of 66 degrees can equal out to a bright sun and temperatures reaching 74 or it can mean, as it did yesterday, overcast skies, random showers, and temperatures that don't hit 50 degrees. Trying to plan a meal, much less a menu ahead of time, is very tricky given these circumstances. Something light and refreshing for dinner or something to warm those chilled bones?

So .. it turns out that soup is wonderful for Spring weather. Usually quick and easy to prepare. Light and yet hearty. Endlessly versatile. Dress it up with some rustic bread and artisan cheese if you'd like. Or perhaps just a salad. Or just let it stand alone and appreciate it's inherent beauty.

White Bean Soup with Vegetables

by Sue Williams, from the 2011 Bits & Pieces Recipes Cookbook

1 T. olive oil

1 large sweet onion, minced

2 medium carrots, minced

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 medium potatoes, chopped

1 medium zucchini, diced

3-4 sprigs parsley, minced

1/4 tsp. each fresh rosemary and thyme, or 1/8 tsp. each dried

6 cups warm chicken broth
2 1/2 cups white beans, soaked & cooked, or 2 cans white beans
1 T. unsalted butter Salt and Pepper to taste

*Heat a medium Dutch oven or stockpot over medium-high heat. Add olive oil. Add onion, carrots, celery, and potatoes. Saute until the vegetables sweat. Stir in rosemary and thyme. Then add zucchini, chicken broth and beans. Cook 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Puree with an immersion blender to desired consistency. Stir in butter and season with salt & pepper. Cook an additional 3-5 minutes.
*Makes 6 servings
*Store in refrigerator for up to 4 days or freeze

Here is our homemade pot of this, after dinner had already been served.

We used homemade chicken stock rather than store-bought broth. We also used 2 cups of grated zucchini in place of the one medium since that is what we had on hand. We forgot the parsley completely but you'll notice it isn't mentioned when to add it anyway in the recipe. We don't yet have an immersion blender (*hint hint to anyone out there*), so we used our blender for this. You could also use a food processor, but ours has been being a pain when it comes to soups lately (another hint hint?), so we tried the blender and it worked wonderfully. Just have an extra bowl handy for the transferring process.

Review: Honestly, we found this recipe a little bland as-is. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though, as it makes it a good recipe for people who can't tolerate a lot of spices such as the elderly, young children, or people whose bodies won't allow them many spices. It also allows a wonderful spring board to personalize it with your choice of herbs and spices. Roasted garlic always calls to me, so I will certainly be adding it, likely along with some garlic powder, to this the next time I make it. And I will be making it again. With all those vegetables in there, how could I possibly resist not doing so?

Scenes from dinner

2011-03-20T16:59:00.000-07:00
Homemade dinners should never be under estimated. Ever. They can be as simple or elaborate as you'd like. Here is what we had tonight.

A loaf of sourdough bread made with roasted garlic and Parmesan cheese. It came out of the oven just in time for dinner and to be topped with some homemade raw butter. Delicious!

Burgundy Beef Po' Boys were the real delight of the evening though. Justin began cooking the beef on Saturday in the slow cooker. The aroma of it was sheer torture!! I really thought I might go insane having to smell it and not being able to devour it.

The recipe came from the book Crock Pot Slow Cooker Best-Loved Recipes.

Burgundy Beef Po' Boys with Dipping Sauce:

1 boneless beef chuck shoulder or bottom round roast (3 pounds) ~ we used rump roast
2 cups chopped onions
1/4 cup dry red wine
3 TB balsamic vinegar
1 TB beef bouillon granules
1 TB Worcestershire sauce
3/4 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder

*Trim excess fat & discard. Cut beef into 3 or 4 pieces. Place onions on bottom of crock pot slow cooker. Top with beef and remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH 8 - 10 hours or until beef is very tender.
*Remove beef from crock pot, allow to cool slightly. Shred with 2 forks. Let cooking liquid stand 5 minutes to allow fat to rise. Skim off fat and discard. Spoon beef into Italian rolls. Serve the cooking liquid as dipping sauce.

We served it with some corn and with the roasted garlic bread on the side.

Soooo good!!

Thoughts from the Kitchen

2011-02-21T07:08:00.000-08:00
It's been nearly a month since I blogged on here, yikes! Sorry 'bout that y'all. But I'm gonna sit down now and look around the kitchen ~ which sadly means no photos today, just thoughts.

Right now I have a moment somewhat to myself. The Sourdough Starter has been fed. Beer bread is in the oven baking. The kids are occupied and the dogs are playing.

Thought 1:
I love to cook. I love to bake. I love real food, slow food. I read cookbooks for fun and dream of dishes yet to be made. However, life can really through a kink into that desire .. especially when you're a mama .. even more especially when you have a finicky 4 year old at the table.
You lose the whimsically magical delight of "Hmm .. what shall I create today?" as you spin around the kitchen in a too-cute apron.
Instead, the sink is full of dishes, the dogs are slobbering on the floor, the counters are cluttered, you're wondering how you keep your shirt so damn dirty, and what the hell are you going to make for dinner that your 4 year old will take one look at that (sometimes not even that, just as soon as he HEARS about it) and begin absolutely SCREAMING "BUT I DON'T LIKE THAT!!!!"
"You've never had it before" you soothingly reply.
"BUT I HATE IT!!!" he screams back.
"It's made with stuff you like" you reassuringly begin to plead.
"NO I DON'T" he screams back again amid his dramatic sobs.
"Well, that's what is for dinner and you can eat it or not, so there." Because no matter how old you are saying "So there" and sticking out your tongue (even if you only do that part in your mind because you don't want your kids doing it back to you) feels REALLY good.
And this whole scene plays out first in your head, because you know it is coming, and then again as soon as dinner is announced, and then again once more as an encore when dinner is served.

Thought 2:
Real food rocks. It can go from being the easiest thing to find to the hardest thing to find. It seems like I'm always finding out new reasons why all these things in the grocery store are really poisoning us. But even through these trials, real food just rocks.
It makes me swoon & drool like some Rock Star Hottie flashing me his baby blues & six-pack abs. Raw Milk Cheese. Spent Beer Grain Bread baked in Flower Pots. Home-cured Ham. Pasture Raised meat on the smoker. --- oh, I am so swooning and drooling right now. Hello Pavlov.
This morning I had a breakfast of two eggs (thanks to the Blue Nymph Biddies, our backyard chickens) fried up in a cast iron skillet on top of a pad of raw milk butter (made here at home), topped with some delicious Irish cheese.
Right now the heavenly aroma of beer bread is filling the kitchen. I made it using Ruby's Deep Winter Stout (a dry Irish stout). I am already envisioning it, fresh out of the oven with butter melting on it as I dig into it for lunch.

The other day someone mentioned a whipped cream cheese to me, as it is lower in calories. I responded that I cared more about real food and didn't bother with calories. And I realized something really freeing: I don't care about calories. I don't even think about them.
Of course I care about health and wellness but, when it comes to food, I realize that I think differently than a lot of people ~ and a lot more like a hopefully growing number of people!
I think about where the food came from. How was it raised and grown? What processes did it have to go through to be the food it is in my kitchen? Is it natural? Does thinking about it and tasting it make me salivate or does it make my mind go "well, it's supposed to be better for me?" in that voice that sighs and silently says "ugh" and resigns itself to this food-like stuff.
I refuse to acknowledge that voice anymore. That voice isn't a happy one. Real food squashes that voice flat and has me singing in a flower-filled meadow.

Thought 3:
I am dreaming of my gardens over-flowing with produce. I am out of homemade ketchup and can't wait to make more. I long to see what the gardens produce this year.
I wasn't ready to welcome Spring. I love the snow and we didn't get it this year, so I've been pretty bummed about that. Now it is still February and I've noticed that my lilac tree has the beginnings of buds on it. So I am letting Winter go and looking forward to Spring. And my gardens. Which will fill my kitchen with fresh, organic food and stock my pantry full.

Thought 4:
What the hell is for dinner tonight?

Beer Bread = Heaven

2011-01-23T16:27:00.001-08:00
We brewed beer today which is always a wonderful delight. This time, instead of letting all the spent grains go to the chickens or the compost pile I decided to make some beer bread with it. The color of the bread is reflective of the type of beer we brewed and therefore the grains we used.
I'm not going to write out a lot here, I'm just going to let the photos speak for themselves.

Can you smell that aroma? The bread fresh out of the oven, warm and topped with butter that melts as soon as it touches it. Are you drooling a little bit? You should be.

The recipe I used said it made 3 loaves of bread. Obviously I adapted it a little and made flowerpot bread. The bread wasn't out of the oven though and we had already eaten well over a loaf's worth of that bread. It was divine.

Fromage Blanc

2011-01-23T11:36:00.000-08:00
For our second cheese we decided to make Fromage Blanc, as a friend (thanks Angie!) had given us a package of Fromage Blanc starter.
~the starter packet, with directions~
Fromage Blanc is a soft cheese and is considered an easy cheese for beginners to make. It is French in origin and literally translates to "white cheese." It has the consistency of cream cheese but with a fraction of the calories and cholesterol.*

To Make Fromage Blanc:
Heat 1 gallon of milk to 86 degrees & mix in 1 packet. Let sit at room temperature (72 degrees), undisturbed, for 12 hours or until thickened like yogurt. Gently ladle the curds into a butter muslin lined colander, hang & drain for 6-12 hours. Refrigerate and enjoy!

We followed both the directions on the packet & the directions in Ricki Carroll's Cheese Making book.

Heating the milk went well, as did adding the packet. We covered the pot and moved it to the dining room, near the radiator, to sit overnight. This was about 7:20pm. ~ Our house isn't kept at 72 degrees, we keep it colder. Also, trying to find a place where it can be undisturbed for so many hours can provide a bit of a challenge. (Since this worked well I am now thinking of going and sitting in the dining room near the radiator when I need undisturbed time to myself)

A little after 8am the next day I ladled it all into the colander to drain. Since I don't have butter muslin I used 4 layers of cheesecloth, which seemed to work well. It drained nicely and, as soon as I could, I hung it up to continue.

~hung up & draining~
~a close-up shot of the whey draining off~

In Ricki Carroll's book she states that a shorter draining time will produce a thinner, more spreadable cheese whereas a longer draining time will produce produce a cheese that is more cream cheese like in it's consistency. We let ours drain almost 10 hours, in part because I wanted the cream cheese consistency and in part because of how our day was going .. it just worked out better for us this way.

Adding the herbs.

Of course we couldn't just let it be as it was. It was good, but the temptation was too great. We followed the recipe for "Herbes De Provence Cheese Spread" that is found in the same book. The recipe called for 1 TB herbes de Provence per 1 cup fromage blanc.

As you can see, we got about 2 1/2 cups of cheese out of the gallon of milk.

We added two heaping tablespoons of Herbes De Provence.

It was easy enough to mix by hand, which is always nice to be able to do instead of using the KitchenAid.

This photo is the same as above, just without the flash. You can see the herbs a lot better here though, so I included both.

The Fromage Blanc with herbes de Provence was met to two thumbs up. Always a good sign.

We also decided to add a head of roasted garlic and then a good tablespoon or so of honey.

We took this cheese along with some baguettes to our brewers guild meeting. We came home with only 1/2 the cheese left (and there was a lot of food there!). ~A good sign.

Recipe Score:
Fromage Blanc - our 2nd cheese. Absolutely delicious!! Fresh, herby, tangy, and sweet. The flavor is simple and yet complex. We will definitely make this again! We also look forward to experimenting more with draining times (and how it affects the consistency) along with add-ins. Simply delightful.

PS ~ We used the leftover whey to make ricotta cheese. That'll be the next blog!

LATE EDIT:
So we JUST realized that while we used the entire package, we only used 1/2 a gallon of milk. This is a common thing to goof up on when your milk comes in 1/2 gallon jars. It's easy to visually grab one jar and assume it was one gallon. This might explain why it was extra crumbly. However, it was still friggin' delicious!!! And, that means that we got 2 1/2 cups of cheese out of only a 1/2 gallon of milk!!! We're now looking forward to making it again even more!!!

Real Buttermilk Cheese

2011-01-10T09:08:00.000-08:00
Justin and I are in love. Not just with each other, but with cheese. A love affair with cheese is a wonderful thing. And, of course, we can't just leave it at buying cheese. We want cheese made from raw milk. We want to continue our pursuit of being self-sufficient and make our own cheese. So .. we are.

We got the book Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. It is a highly recommended book when you desire to make cheese.

The first recipe we tried was "Real Buttermilk Cheese." This is made using real buttermilk, the product leftover from turning cream into butter, not the buttermilk you buy at the store. Since we had some of this on hand from butter making we decided to give it a whirl. Here is how it went.

It began with a little over 3 cups of real buttermilk. The recipe called for 1 gallon, but we used what we had and decided we'd be ok with less cheese as a result.

On the left, the buttermilk heating up on the stove-top. On the right, cheesecloth over the colander, which is sitting inside a bowl.

So, the recipe says to heat the buttermilk to between 160 degrees, at which point it will separate into curds and whey. If it fails to do so, heat it to 180 degrees.
The recipe had also advised setting the buttermilk out at 72 degrees for 24 hours to sour it some, but said that this step was optional. Since we had already let it sit out once (after it was made) we used the buttermilk straight from the fridge.

Where things began to go wrong.

The buttermilk didn't separate out into curds and whey. I began to wonder what the hell curds and whey even looked like because all I could keep thinking of was Miss Muffett and that damn spider. I came up with a rhyme of my own:

Little Miss Dreadie
sat oh so ready
waiting on curds and whey ..

Here is my first photo of the buttermilk once it had reached it proper temperature.

See how it just has skin on it?? This is all it would do.

I decided to let it cool down then reheat it. I did this a couple of times and all I got was skin.

I was taking notes as I went. Here they are:

This is taking a long time and I am beginning to doubt curds will form. It's been over 10 minutes and I've just got hot buttermilk.

2:27 - heated it back up to 180 and decided to then cover & turn off heat as we have an errand to run. It began boiling on me. I'm worried. But it is covered and the heat is off and we'll see what it looks like after my errand.

4:30 - No change. Heated it back up and got same results. Finally decided to add 1tsp rennet diluted in 1/8 cup water.

4:50 - Hanging it to drain. ~ 1 gallon was supposed to make 1 1/2 lbs. I used 1/4 gallon, so this might actually be the results I was supposed to get. That's a lotta friggin' whey leftover!

This was all I was able to get as far as any notion of "curds" go. I broke down and added rennet, which shouldn't have been needed since this was cow's milk and not goat's.

So, I drained it through and then hung it up. I usually have a basket hanging from a hook over my KitchenAid but I took it down and hung this up. It worked really well actually.

After letting it hang for 4 hours, this is what I got. You can see the container is a tiny one, but of course I only used 3 cups of buttermilk, so whaddya expect??

The "cheese" has the consistency of cottage cheese. The house had begun to smell like cooked milk so it's taken me until today (I made this on Saturday) to try and taste it without immediately tasting cooked milk. However .. it still tastes like cooked milk to me.

Perhaps if we had added herbs or honey or something like that it would taste better. But that will have to wait until next time.

Recipe Score:
Real Buttermilk Cheese - 1st attempt - Going to the chickens.

Home-Cured Ham

2010-11-15T10:35:00.000-08:00
We get our meat from a local farm and we get 1/2 a hog twice a year. The meat is fantastic, it is pasture-raised and organic (though not certified). We know the farmers and they are some of the kindest people we've ever met. But .. there was a problem. How is it possible that we get an entire pig a year and yet we have to go out and buy ham for Hokie Ham Biscuits (http://mamataneyskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/01/mama-taneys-hokie-ham-biscuits.html) or for holiday meals, or just for any ole reason?? Something just ain't right!

You can imagine my delight then when I found a website that gave step-by-step instructions for curing your own ham at home!! You use a wet cure rather than a dry cure. *Traditional Virginia Ham is dry cured.* I had talked to my farmer-lady and she told me that some of the other folks who get meat from her have tried dry-curing it, but that it can be very tricky. Wet-curing is the solution folks. (pardon the pun)

Here's the link for the website: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Cure-Ham-at-Home

Today I put four 3lb ham roasts out to cure. Here's how it goes.

Hello ham!! Pork Fresh Ham Roast is what the label says. We get ours cut to the size we want. The 3lb size makes it easy to work with.

Four Hams in a pot.

The ingredients & the brine. Sounds like a fairytale. 2 liters water (re-using an old soda bottle makes measuring easy), 1 cup packed brown sugar, 3/4 cup sea salt (if you're gonna cure your own ham, use good salt!), and 1 tsp DQ Curing Salt. The DQ Curing Salt is what gives it the rosy color and also ensures you don't get botulism.

Ham soaking in brine. I weighed this down with two plates to make sure that the ham stays moist & covered with the brine.

I then put this into a small dorm-sized fridge that we have. The site says it cures at a rate of roughly 2lbs per day. I'll leave this in for a week. After we take it out we'll smoke it as well.

One of the really great things about this recipe is that you can do it in batches of most any size. Whatever you have room for. I love it.

TA DA!! The finished product!! Ok, well the finished product from our last batch. You know you're on to something when the ham hops off the smoker and says "HOT DAMN I look good!!" Literally, it did. It tasted even better.

I've never really cared for ham at holiday dinners, but we're planning on serving some alongside the turkey this year. It really is that good. Mouth-watering, moist, just the right mix of salty & sweet. Damn delicious.

Pumpkin Pie Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

2010-11-06T12:31:00.000-07:00
I've gotten back into sourdough bread. I love watching the starter bubble and grow. Lucky for me my mother is a sourdough fan and had wonderful, time-tested recipes that she shared with me a couple of years ago. I'll share with you the base recipe for these.

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls:

*Dissolve 1 envelope (or 2 1/4 tsp) yeast into 1/2 cup warm water. Add 1 cup starter, 4 TB oil, 2 + cups self-rising flour, and a dash of salt.
*Mix & knead with extra flour. Shape & let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
*Divide into half. Roll into 2 rectangles.
*Mix 1/4 cup melted butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Spread onto rectangles & drop on raisins.
*Roll lengthwise & slice.
*Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Now, like I said, this was my base recipe. Here are some of my substitutions:

1) I use a mixture of 1/2 whole wheat & 1/2 unbleached white flour. Even in my starter. So these have more wheat oomph and are a little healthier. I also used 2 1/2 cups flour when I began, then extra flour for dusting when rolling.
2) I don't use self-rising flour. To make 2 cups of all-purpose flour into self-rising flour you need to mix in 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, & 1 tsp baking powder into the flour.
3) Instead of 1/2 cup warm water for the yeast I used 1/2 cup raw cream. I warmed it in the microwave - about 30 seconds.
4) To the dough mixture I added a little bit of homemade vanilla extract and also some organic maple syrup.
5) For the filling I used 1/2 of a 15 oz. can of pure canned pumpkin, 1/4 cup (give or take) homemade raw butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup organic raw sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie seasoning, roughly 1 TB organic maple syrup (this was eyeballed, not measured), and a good dash of homemade vanilla extract.
6) I don't necessarily use all of my filling. I spread it on there so that it looks properly covered. This left me about 1/4 cup filling leftover, maybe less (again, eyeballing it!). Read on to see what to do with it!

Fresh out of the oven & filling the house with an aroma that is far too tantalizing!
I've made Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls once before, and I made the mistake of not making icing to go with them. I don't think Justin has stopped sulking about it since, much less has he let me forget my horrible, horrible faux pas.
So it comes with no surprise that when I told him what I was going to make today his first question was "With icing?" I reassured him yes, with icing. "With cream cheese icing??" Yes, with cream cheese icing.
But this wasn't just cream cheese icing!

I got the base recipe here: http://www.food.com/recipe/cinnamon-roll-icing-276879 - but I'm going to go ahead and just give you how I did it.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing for Cinnamon Rolls:
*1 block cream cheese (do NOT go with anything other than regular .. aka "full-fat" cream cheese!! If you're going to indulge, do it properly damn it.)
*3+ TB raw milk butter (it does taste better & is better for you, but store bought is ok too. Best if you can find it from pastured cows though!)
*1/4 tsp vanilla (as usual, I used the homemade stuff. It's too easy not to make it yourself and so much better!)
*1 cup powdered sugar
*2 - 3 TB raw cream (actually, this was another eyeballed one. Use less for thicker icing, more for thinner)
*Remainder of filling
*Another splash or so of organic maple syrup

~Blend room temperature butter & cream cheese together. Add the rest of the ingredients. Attempt not to dig in with a spoon right then and there. MAKE SURE you are armed with a good wooden spoon to smack away your loved ones' hands as they attempt to eat the whole thing right then and there. -- Special note to single gals -- Want to be swarmed by men?? Make this up!! They'll swarm around you, trying to charm their way into the mixing bowl. And, no, I'm not being a pervert there. You don't even have to put on makeup, their eyes will likely not go that high. Unless you are shorter than the mixing bowl, and if that's the case, go for the make-up just in case.
Still warm, topped with icing (though they would get more before it was all over), and ready to be devoured.

Would you like more proof of how delicious these little babies are?? That above photo wasn't the first one I took of them "done." Here is the actual photo.

As I was trying to take the photo this little hand snuck in, giving me the thumbs-up! So .. there you go, Shannon's seal of approval!! ~ fyi .. Tristan was unavailable for comment at the time of the photos as he was still sleeping. But, when he got up he was very excited about getting "Ciddabon Rolls".
Be kind and share these with those living close enough to be tormented by the aroma!

The Happy Meal Experiment - One Week Later

2010-09-30T08:48:00.001-07:00
It's now been one full week since I bought the Happy Meal for this experiment. It is a plain cheeseburger Happy Meal, with fries. I am treating this Happy Meal as a "Forgotten Happy Meal." This past week it has sat on my kitchen counter. For the record: our house has no AC and we haven't had the heat on either. Temperatures have varied this past week from the lower-mid 90's to barely 60 and rainy. It has been pretty humid here though, no matter the weather. We have the window open in the kitchen, as well as fans going, so there is a lot of air flow in general. So, the Happy Meal has just sat out, forgotten about, on the counter. The only thing I've done is taken the toy out of the box. Even the napkins are still in there! Take a look!

~Looking as if I just brought it home from McDonald's~

~Unwrapped for examination. So far, still looking rather new. The fries have shriveled up and darkened a little bit. The burger still feels normal.~

~A close-up of the french fries.~

~When I was handling the bag of fries I noticed that the bottom of the bag felt heavier than it usually does when it is "fresh." So, I peered in. I noticed at least one fry was growing mold and turning black. Since the ones on the top weren't doing this, I'm inclined to think that this is because the fries on the bottom of the bag are clustered together in a more moist environment. I moved the fry so that we could get a photo of the one I saw with the black spot. I did NOT take all of the fries out. This is a "forgotten Happy Meal", to take them out would be messing with it too much.~

~The cheeseburger seemed fine. I pried the bun away from the bottom just a little bit, it was NOT wanting to come apart. So far, everything still looks roughly the same, maybe just a little older looking. When I turned the burger over though, I could see some white fuzz of mold beginning to grow. Again, given that the burger was wrapped with the loose part of the wrapping being on the top of the bun, I am inclined to say that the growth here is for the same reason as the fries.~

*THOUGHTS ON THE OBSERVATIONS:
It is decaying more than I thought it would. Which makes me cringe to have to admit my husband might have been right in his "I don't believe that" about the 4 year old Happy Meal that has not rotted or decayed at all. I am keeping this for at least another week, but I have a feeling that it will have rotted to the point of tossing by then.
I am also reminded of the food that I find in the car. Anyone who has kids finds food in their car at some point in time and wonders how long it has been there. It doesn't always rot and mold and decay.
I wonder if the Happy Meal in the video wasn't left to sit out and air-dry to some degree. Sitting out yes, but not wrapped up. Should that be the case I feel like the video is misleading and twisting truths since she shows it in original packaging (wrapper, fry bag, etc).
I'm very curious to see what next week brings.

What do you think??

The Happy Meal Experiment

2010-09-24T06:31:00.000-07:00
I recently saw this video on YouTube of an interview with a woman who had been carrying around a McDonald's Happy Meal for nearly 4 years.

I believed the woman and was pretty grossed out by the fact that the food wasn't decaying. Food is meant to go bad and decay, not stay the same year in, year out.
I told Justin about it. As usual, his response was a very matter-of-fact "I don't believe it." ~ Ok, it's a little bit more than annoying when you find out something new and eagerly tell your spouse about it, only to be met with an arrogant & condescending "I don't believe that." Without having seen it, without wanting to hear more about it, without knowing anything about it. I love the man, but ... grrrrr!

HOWEVER, that being said, he does have a point. Do I believe the lady? Yes. But did I see this personally? No. Have I seen how it was truly kept? No. Scientifically speaking, Justin's doubt is justifiable. Time for a Science Experiment.

So yesterday I went out and bought a plain cheeseburger kid's Happy Meal from our local McDonald's. I'll even admit to buying myself a meal too. The kitchen is still under construction, so I hadn't eaten, and if this experiment turns out the way I think it will, I decided to let myself have one last McDonald's meal.

~The said Happy Meal, properly dated.~

And so begins "The Happy Meal Experiment".

THE QUESTION ~ Will food from a McDonald's Happy Meal decompose and rot like real food should, if left out? Food includes a plain cheeseburger and a small french fry order.

MY HYPOTHESIS ~ I don't think it will. I think it will turn stale and old, but not properly rot.

THE VARIABLES ~ I am treating this Happy Meal as a "forgotten Happy Meal." One set aside to be eaten later, and then forgotten about. The food will be kept somewhere in my house, set up out of the way so little hands and hungry dogs won't be able to get it.
*The food will be stored the way it came when I ordered it. The cheeseburger is loosely wrapped in it's wrapper, the fries are sitting in their bag. I've even left the napkins in the bottom of the box. (I did remove the toy and let the kiddos have that)
*For the 1st month I will take weekly photos of the food inside. After that I will take monthly photos.

Here is the first photo of the food, taken yesterday Sept. 23, 2010. You can see how these items come served.
I did not open the cheeseburger to expose the burger or cheese. I won't do so until they begin to fall apart on their own.

What do you think? Do you think this food will rot & break down?

Got Sour Cream??

2010-09-07T15:29:00.000-07:00
This video is worth watching, and worth listening to. You can tell because I put it at the top of the blog ;) - Here is the link to it, just in case the video won't play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWg0cCNAB-M

What Michael Pollan said about sour cream got me thinking. He said if you looked at the ingredients of no-fat sour cream that you would be stunned.

Fat Free Sour Cream from Kroger, with the little colorful labels to assure me it is good for us. But, to quote Michael Pollan "It's an image, an idea of sour cream..". As much as I believe in real food, as much as I love raw milk, I will sadly admit this is what I had been buying for my family.

This is what I'm buying now. Why? Well, let's look at the labels.
From Breakstone's All Natural Sour Cream:
Ingredients:
Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Milk and Cream, Enzymes
- In case you want to double check, just click here - http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10052&catalogId=1&productId=364248 or you can also click here - http://brands.kraftfoods.com/breakstones/main.aspx?s=product&m=product/product_display&Site=1&Product=2100030165

From Kroger's Fat Free Sour Cream:
Ingredients:
Cultured Skim Milk and Cream, Modified Corn Starch, Cellulose Gel, Propylene Glycol Monoester, Gum Arabic, Cultured Dextrose, Gelatin, Titanium Dioxide (For Color), Cellulose Gum, Lactic Acid, Natural Flavor, Anhydrous Milkfat, Xanthan Gum, Salt, Rosemary Extract, Sodium Citrate, Vitamin A Palimate.
-If you want to double check me on this one, you're going to have to go to Kroger, meander down the dairy aisle, and read the label for yourself. I tried and tried, but couldn't find the ingredient list online. The Nutritional Info I could find, the ingredients .. nope.
~Fun Fact -- Titanium Dioxide (also found in sunscreen & toothpastes among many other products) is a known possible carcinogen. http://www.gonando.com/titanium-dioxide.html
I don't know about you, but after reading the ingredient list on Kroger's Fat Free Sour Cream, I was pretty turned-off. Grossed out. And left standing in the dairy aisle wondering such things as "what the hell is Proylene Glycol Monoester" and "why does a white product need coloring added" and "Cornstarch? Really?!?"
Also, it really creeps me out that I couldn't find the ingredient list online for Kroger's Fat Free Sour Cream. Yea, sure they list the Nutritional Info, but to me that is only 1/2 the picture.

Is Breakstone's All Natural (triple churned too!) Sour Cream the best possible sour cream out there? Not likely. It isn't organic, it is highly unlikely that the cows were pasture-raised, and I'm guessing the "all natural" part of their label just means "read the ingredients, there isn't a lot of creepy crap in there!"
But, I DO feel a lot better about giving my children the Breakstone Sour Cream as opposed to the Kroger Sour Cream. I don't think the Kroger Sour Cream should even be allowed to be called Sour Cream. Imitation Sour Cream Product would be much more appropriate.
What do you think?

Putting Sweet Corn By

2010-08-15T19:15:00.000-07:00
This evening we just spent 3 hours putting by roughly 50 ears of sweet corn.

~Hello my golden beauties!~

This was a first for us, and originally I intended to actually can the corn. But I read where canning corn can be really tricky, versus freezing it, which is pretty simple and straight-forward.
I found the info needed at http://www.pickyourown.org/. It is a truly wonderful site. You can not only find places all over .. well, the place to pick your own veggies, but you can also find corn mazes, pumpkin patches, Christmas tree farms, and ... wait for it ... what to do with it all!!!! Here is the direct link for the info on freezing corn: http://www.pickyourown.org/freezingcorn.htm

But, basically, here is how you do it.

Freezing Sweet Corn:

1) Get yourself some fresh corn & some large pots. You'll want to be able to freeze the corn as soon as you can after getting it as the sugars in sweet corn break down quickly at room temperature.

2) For the pots I used my canning pots. This will depend on how much corn you intend to freeze. Even using my big pots though we did several batches. Fill one pot roughly 3/4 the way full with hot water and get it going to a nice boil. *Eco-Tip & $$ Saving Tip ~ make sure you use a lid on that pot of boiling water!! You'll save $$ and the water won't lose heat as quickly, making it more efficient.* The other pot you'll want to fill with ice & water. And you WILL need LOTS of ice!! DON'T use it all for the first batch either. I needed at least 3 batches worth of ice.

3) Shuck the corn. Get the husks off and as much of the silk as you can. Use a scrubby brush if you need to, but be gentle. We were able to get all the silk pretty much off just with our hands. ~ Fun note ~ the kids actually put down new toys (it was Tristan's birthday yesterday, so lots of new goodies to play with) to come shuck corn with me!! How cool is that??

4) Put the shucked corn into the boiling water. What you're doing now is blanching the corn. For corn you're going to want to blanch it for roughly 7 minutes in the boiling water. ~ Make sure you have tongs!!

5) Once you've blanched the corn, you're going to take it out of the boiling water and put it into the ice water. This prevents over cooking. You're going to want to let it sit in the ice eater as long as it was in the boiling water (as a good rule of thumb). Afterwards, drain it thoroughly.

6) Next you're going to cut the kernels off of the cob. Pretty simple and straight-forward.

7) Bag it up! I figured up roughly how many kernels we ate as a family and added one more, just in case. You can use a vacuum sealer or a ziploc baggy. Just make sure to get the air out as best you can. ~ The air being in there becomes more of an issue the longer the corn is stored in the freezer.

8) Label it & Freeze it. TA-FRIGGIN-DA!!!

~Not the most fantastic of photos, but look at all that corn!~
So, I know you might be thinking "Is it really worth it?". Well, we did all of this in our kitchen, on an insanely muggy day, in a house with no AC, on a gas stove with NO vent, in a kitchen that catches the evening sun. It's the hottest damn room of the house.

But .. financially, is it worth it worth it?? Well, we paid $15 for 50 ears of locally grown corn. I haven't asked them about pesticides, but the farm we got the ears from is listed on the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service website, so I'm feeling ok with them. Plus, it is locally grown.

A can of organic corn from our local grocery store is $1.19 a can, plus tax. We use two cans with dinner. Roughly $2.50 per dinner (with tax).
50 ears of corn, 12 bags frozen for future dinners = $15 ~ and you can even add in a dollar or two for other costs of putting it all together. We used a vacuum sealer and bought special bags for it, so you can add another $5 there. So, let's bring the total up to $22 .. just to be generous.

2 cans of corn @ $2.50 each, multiplied by 12 = $29.99

A savings of, at minimum $8, possibly more. Locally grown corn versus store-brand organic corn grown in .. where, I don't know where. The can says it was distributed in Ohio and Certified Organic in San Diego, CA. Guessing that means it was grown in California. We're in Virginia is all the way across the country for us. Versus Copper Hill which is maybe 20 minutes away from out house, and that's up curvy mountain roads!
Lessons in sustainability, supporting our local economy and more importantly our local farmers, fresh corn that was just picked this week (Do you talk to the farmer before you go to grocery store?? Does he call you back to let you know if the corn was ready for picking?), and actual monetary savings. You tell me if it was worth it.

Roasted Garlic Dip

2010-07-07T06:19:00.000-07:00
AKA - Crack on a Chip!

This recipe was given to me by my friend Sarah. It is delicious. Justin & I pretty much ate this entire bowl in one evening. I've tweaked the recipe only a bit.
Roasted Garlic Dip
2 bulbs (not cloves!) of garlic, roasted
1 package cream cheese
1 tsp - TB garlic powder
1-2 TB sour cream

~ Let your cream cheese sit out for a while so that it softens and comes to room temperature. Roast your garlic bulbs, then after they are cool enough to handle, squeeze the roasted garlic out of the skins and into a mixing bowl. Add the softened cream cheese (if it is soft enough this is something you can very easily mix by hand) and the sour cream. The sour cream helps keep it from hardening up too much when it gets chilled. Finally add the garlic powder. The garlic powder gives you a nice garlicy bite at the front, use less if you want less of a bite, more if you want more of a bite - hence why I wrote "1 tsp - TB".
~ Stir it all up together. Chill again in the fridge for a bit, or devour it straight away. Good with ripple chips, pita chips, and straight off the damn spoon.

This is a perfect dish to make when you have a potluck to go to and little time/energy/desire to prep up something bigger.

Egg & Cheese English Muffin - Take that McD's!

2010-05-17T06:40:00.001-07:00
One of may favorite foodie blogs posted this recipe not too long ago: http://www.macheesmo.com/2010/03/breakfast-sandwiches/ ~ I was intruiged and HAD to try it out.
Let me tell you .. Mickie D's is crap. Real Food rocks. And if you think it takes too long you're thinking wrong. That's just the facts folks. Here's our stab at Egg McMuffins.

~The eggs, fresh out of the oven, tops still poofy~

This recipe is insanely simple, hardly worthy of writing down recipe style. But here it goes anyway.

Egg McMuffins:
4 - 5 eggs
Splash of milk & melted butter

*Scramble these together in your bowl & then carefully pour them into a greased muffin tray*

Package of English Muffins. ~ Be healthy, use whole wheat or whole grain. Remember - the white the bread, the sooner you'll be dead.

*Turn on your oven to 350. You'll want to cook your eggs for 15 - 20 mins. You can also go ahead and slice the muffins, spread them out on a cookie sheet & toast them in the oven with the eggs. The muffins will only need about 10 minutes in the oven, so get your eggs in there first, then slice the muffins, and you should be good time wise.*

~Out of the oven, on the muffin, just needing some cheese~

*Putting it all together is pretty straightforward. Top it with some cheese. We have taken to adding some mustard on the muffin, but do what you wish here.*
Nick's photos are great, so I definitely recommend you check out his recipe for this. He will also give you enough info on WHY you should make these.
We did make a change to his recipe though - we scrambled the eggs. It's an extra step but one we preferred. The first batch, made following his recipe & just cracking the eggs into the muffin pan resulted in bites of pure egg white or pure yolk. And it seemed to make the whole thing hit heavy on your stomach. Feel free to find the way that is right for you though. We also used slices of cheese on ours rather than shredded - no reason there, just seemed easier for us.
I make these 6 at a time, which is really easy since there are 6 English Muffins in a package. Justin has taken them to work the next day for breakfast .. which is the ONLY time I've known Justin to actually eat something for breakfast at work. That should tell ya something. These bad boys are GOOD.
If you want them for your work week, make them up over the weekend. Wrap & freeze. Take to work & reheat. If you have a toaster you can heat them up in there, if not you can zap 'em in the microwave, they just will be a little chewier. But you'll have a homemade breakfast that you can eat at your desk. You'll have the pride of knowing you didn't succumb to spending money at McDonald's. If you're eating local eggs, you'll know you're supporting local chickens (thank you!). Add all those up and you have a tasty-good way to start your day.

Homemade Ginger Ale

2010-05-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

Temperatures around here have already hit 90 degrees, which is kinda insane (in my opinion) when you've barely entered May. When it gets that hot we all head for something to cool us down, and so I wanted to share this recipe with you.

I don't know about you, but too often I hear a LOT of what NOT to eat or drink, which leaves me feeling like there is little left that is "ok" to eat or drink. We all know sodas are bad. We now here how fruit juices are bad as well, likely because most of them only vaguely resemble true fruit juice anymore. Water is ok, but there's a lot of yabbering about filtered v. tap. Milk is good. Well golly then, I'm left with two options. Not fun. So, I was very happy to find recipes for drinks when browsing through my new favorite cookbook, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.

~Homemade Ginger Ale, sitting in between a bottle of homebrew and a jug of homemade cherry ginger lemonade. Can you see the ginger at the bottom of the jug?~

The recipe for Ginger Ale can be found on page 586 of her book. It makes 2 quarts and is very yummy! It has the nice bite of ginger that is too often lacking in drinks that claim to be made of ginger. If you're not used to real ginger (I wasn't) it might take a little getting used to, but it is worth it. Here is how I made it.

Homemade Ginger Ale - from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
3/4 cup ginger, peeled & finely chopped or grated
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4- 1/2 cup organic sugar
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 quarts water

~ I heated some of the water with the sugar to make a simple syrup before adding it to the jar. I also threw the ginger in and let it go for a bit in the pot with the simple syrup. Since I was using a glass jar, I made sure to run some hot water through it first to ensure it would break.
I added the lime juice & salt directly to the jar and then poured the simple syrup (slightly cooled down) into the jar & then filled it on up with water.
~ According to the book, once you've filled up the jar you "stir well & cover tightly. Leave at room temperature for 2 - 3 days before transferring to the refrigerator. This will keep several months well chilled.
To serve, strain into a glass. Ginger ale may be mixed with carbonated water and it is best sipped warm rather than gulped down cold."

I'll admit, when I first drank this it was with ice and it was slightly gulped down. The ginger ale had not yet made it to the fridge and the kitchen was deathly hot. It was still good though. Likely next time I won't add the ice and I will sip on it rather than glug it.
Ginger is also really good for aiding the digestion process, so this isn't a bad drink to have with your dinner. It also helps calm stomachs, so there is another bonus to it.
Was it maybe a little more expensive than buying a 2 liter of ginger ale soda? Yes. Is it worth it? Without a doubt or any hesitance, yes.
Bring on Summer.

Oh my, PIE!!

2010-04-18T07:15:00.001-07:00
This is NOT my recipe. This is me sharing with a wonderful site, with amazing photos. It's a friend's blog and I absolutely love it!!! Every Friday she offers "Free Recipe Friday" ~ here is the link to the most recent recipe: http://lemongrassbakery.com/blog/2010/04/free-recipe-friday-2/.
Because I am nice, and because if you like food you simply MUST actually check out her site, I will post the sans-photo recipe below. It is for a Lemon Chess Pie. Do yourself a favor though and go check out her site for yourself! And then, buy some of the notecards. I have one. I haven't been able to mail it to someone yet. I have resisted actually nibbling on the notecard, for it is too yummy looking, but I do keep it hung up inside the plastic sleeve so that my drooling doesn't damage it. Really, Ashley puts Aunt Bea to shame and Jon Beard's photos make me feel like I am doing stick-drawings with my photos. They are a pair, and they ROCK!! Here's the recipe, from Lemongrass Bakery.

Lemon Chess Pie is our delightful free recipe for today. It is truly an ancient recipe, dating back to the pre stand mixers era. Gasp! Was there a time before the convenience of stand mixers? Whip heavy cream by hand once and you will realize why your grandmother could pick you up off the ground by your ear when you were naughty. Anyway, I digress. Let’s get to it!

Ingredients:
one pie crust
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon yellow cornmeal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon pure lemon extract
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup whole milk
4 extra large eggs

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lay pie crust in pie pan and press into corners. Crimp edge, set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk sugar, flour, cornmeal, salt and lemon extract until combined.
4. Add melted butter, lemon zest, lemon juice and milk. Whisk until smooth.
5. Add large eggs, whisking between each addition. Whisk until smooth.
6. Pour into unbaked pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

If you are like me, and wonder how you ever lived without this recipe, I invite you to support this site by buying one of the recipe notecards. We are positive you will discover the power of amazing dessert. Old friends start calling again, your mother sings your praises, your significant other starts washing the dishes. But, remember, with great power comes great responsibility. You will need to keep baking.

Rasananda's Samosas

2010-03-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

This recipe is from 'Cooking with the Dead' by Elizabeth Zippern. How can you not love the cover of that book? Or how it contains "Over 65 fabulous, kynd, and caring vegetarian recipes prepared with love"? I love lots, I love lot food, and every time I even hold this book, I am in love.

In the book (page 4) it quotes on fan as saying "When you think of Samosas, you think of Rasananda, and when you think of Rasananda, you think of Samosas." This is his recipe.

Rasananda's Samosas:

Dough:
2 cups white &/or whole-wheat flour
Water ~ 1/2 - 1 cup (or enough to make dough)
1 tsp. salt
1/4 ghee (Note ~ I just use butter)
*Ghee is butter which has had its protein solids cooked off. To make this, cook butter for a few hours over low heat & scrape off the solids which form on the surface after cooking. To further separate the solids from the ghee, strain over a paper towel. Ghee can also be purchased in a Co-op, health food store, or Indian market*

Filling:
2 cups potatoes
1 cup cauliflower
1 cup peas
1/2 cup tomatoes
1 tsp or more to taste of cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry, & chili powder

~Steam or boil the cauliflower and potatoes and then drain. Saute them in oil with cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry, and chili powder. Add the tomatoes and peas. Mix well and continue to saute until thick enough to stuff into the dough as a filling. When finished, take off heat, mix, and let cool.

~ Mix the flour & salt with the ghee and add water to make a dough. Make equal golf-ball sized balls out of the dough and then roll flat with a rolling pin. Stuff the stuffing inside, then close tightly like a turnover for frying. Fry in oil combined with a few more teaspoons of ghee. Flip occasionally and fry until a light brown.
* Note ~ I bake mine. I find this much easier, personally speaking, and like staying away from the extra oil. I line them on a cooking sheet and bake at 325 for approx. 20 - 30 minutes, till they are nice and brown. We then serve them with sour cream on the side. Yummy!

~The filling, in the pot, cooling down~

~The dough, looking deceptively dry in this photo~

~The filling in the dough, ready to be folded over. I am notoriously bad at starting with good, small amounts of dough that yield beautiful Samosas and them making them consecutively bigger until I have Hot Pocket sized Samosas. It's a problem, I need counseling &/or therapy.~

~Hot Pocket sized Samosas, brushed with butter, and ready for the oven~

They might not be 100% true to Rasananda's, I've never actually had his, I bake mine and I used butter instead of Ghee. But they are made with love, and they are yummy. And every time I eat them I feel them healing me. It is wonderful and beautiful. Try them sometime.

Homebrewed Pancakes

2010-03-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

A while ago a friend of mine posted a very intriguing blog. http://booandmae.blogspot.com/2010/02/mmmbeer-pancakes.html -- Pancakes with beer?!? Bailie's boyfriend Kevin is a homebrewer like us. Beer snobs we all are. I HAD to try this.
The very next Thursday I made them. We've found that Shannon seems to do better with his drum lessons on Thursday evenings (or at least he did once) if he's eaten breakfast food for dinner. So, a new family tradition has been born.

~The batter in one of my favorite vintage Pyrex bowls, and 3 pancakes cooking in my cast-iron skillet - ahh, life is good~

Here is the recipe, based on a Buttermilk Pancake recipe from my Grandmother's Better Homes & Garden's New Cookbook, 8th Edition (1968, I believe).

Beer Pancakes:

1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup beer - warmed (or else it will cause the butter to congeal)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

~Sift together the dry ingredients. Combine the egg, beer, and butter; add to the dry ingredients just till flour is moistened. (Batter will be lumpy)
~Bake on a hot griddle or skillet. Makes about 12 dollar-size or eight 4-inch pancakes. I always double the recipe.

~The VERY delicious result!! These babies didn't last long on the plate!~

The Result:
Oh my, these were GOOD!! For the beer I used some of our Ruby's Deep Winter Stout, hence the pancakes darker color. I also believe in letting my pancakes brown a little bit on each side. Call it an Anti-IHOP & Denny's thing. (IHOP & Denny's suck by the way!!)
For those who may be worried about beer in food that is being served to kids, fear not. The alcohol cooks out of them, leaving only the flavor of the beer itself. If you're still worried that the time on the skillet isn't long enough to cook any alcohol out, put the pancakes on a plate and set them in your oven. Turn the oven to low bake and let them bake for 5-10 minutes. They'll still be delicious (my mother has always kept food warm like this till dinner was ready) and you can definitely rest assured.
For different flavors, try different beers. Bailie (& Kevin) used Sam Adam's Coastal Wheat with a touch of brown sugar to help sweeten it. Experiment and enjoy. You will seriously put IHOP to shame!!

Help, ideas Needed!! & There's a Reward!

2010-03-10T12:04:00.000-08:00
We try to eat pretty darn healthy. We try to eat real food, slow food, traditional food. But, let's be honest ... some nights we revert to take-out/fast food. *head hung in shame*

SOME nights are just THOSE nights. When you've had one of THOSE days. When doing anything much more than popping something into something else to cook is just too much. We all have those nights (and those days), so let's be honest about it. --- In our world, especially when we're still transitioning from boxed & processed to real & slow, we need some dishes that can become real "fast food." Real THOSE nights food. -- We also need a better name for that .... what are your ideas??

Usually, this is where my love of leftovers comes in. Often I'll make things in big batches (I've been a little lax lately - head hung in shame again), just to freeze part for a later meal. My Mattar Paneer is my standby for this type of stuff. Lucky for me at least, I love it and can always eat it.

Here's where I need your help though. I need some ideas on other dishes that are good to pre-start/make-up ahead of time and freeze for later. Something that is as easy to prep as tossing it in the microwave or oven. Something for when I'm too drained, I'm gripping onto the kitchen counter and hanging on for dear life, trying not to snap and kill all in a 25 miles radius like a Atomic Mama Bomb.

I wanna hear your ideas. Comment on this, leave recipes or link to recipes. I'll review them (hey look, a goal!), I'll even remember to post photos!!

And there is a REWARD: The one I end up liking the best, I'll send you a little sumthin'-sumthin' filled with homemade love. --- Ok, that sounds wrong and naughty. But hopefully you'll like it. ... and yes, I know that didn't sound any better.
AND - the person who comes up with the best name to replace 'Real THOSE nights food' will win a little sumthin' sumthin' too. If the same person wins, then they'll get a bigger sumthin' sumthin'.

Deadline???? Hmm .. let's say the deadline for this is one month from now, April 10th.

The Best Fridge

2010-03-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

If you follow my main blog http://www.thebluenymph.blogspot.com/, you'll know by now we're looking at hopefully renovating the kitchen. We have a great kitchen already, but it needs to work better for us. But this blog today isn't about the kitchen itself. It is about the fridge.

This is a picture of our current fridge, a picture I took today. The fridge is too small for our needs, has some minor other issues, hence we need a new fridge. But I realized something as I was looking at the fridge today. Something that made me stop, instantly take a photo (hence the cell phone pic, sorry) and post this.
This is the BEST our fridge will EVER look. I know that sounds silly. But it is true.
Right now, as you can clearly see, our fridge is old. It is covered in alphabet magnets, farm magnets, construction paper cut-out creations, photos of the kids, my favorite photo of our nephew Gabe, a dry erase board, coupons, and so on. And it is the best it will ever be.
I simply HAD to capture this moment. If I didn't, I would regret it forever. This fridge, as it is today, is something that makes me want to cry.
Right now our children are still tiny and young. That is what makes this fridge so fantastic, so perfect.
One day, before we know it, the alphabet letters will be long gone & construction paper creations, colorings, and art projects will likely not handed to us with great pride to be displayed on the fridge. Right now they are.
Right now, the fridge is beautiful and perfect.

And .. when we get a new fridge, it too will get happily covered in the same things. Our new one will almost certainly be a stainless steel fridge, ones notorious for finger print smudges. And I will love those too. I will not try to erase them as quickly as they appear. They will make the new fridge all the better instead.

Perfect.

Easy as Pie

2010-01-20T14:43:00.001-08:00

If you're thinking homemade pizza is too difficult to make for dinner, especially on a weekday night, you've got another thing coming. It's as easy as pie. (pu-dum-pum) Pizza Pie! (ok, I'll stop!)

Basic Pizza Dough Recipe:
*3 1/2 cups flour (I use a nice blend of unbleached white & whole wheat)
*1 cup warm water
*2 TB yeast
*2 TB honey
*1/4 cup olive oil
*1/2 tsp. salt

Two Big Personal Notes Here:
1) I use a bread maker, set for 'Dough'. The main reason I do this is because of Murphy's Law. When trying to make bread and having little kids under foot, someone will always need attention when you are hands-deep in mixing dough. This is just one of those time savers.
2) This recipe is enough for two "medium" sized pizzas and too much for one big pizza. But it is so yummy (as homemade pizza tends to be), you'll be glad you split the dough in half for the second pizza!

While the dough is rising a little in the bread machine I turn my oven on to 425 degrees, with my pizza stone in there. In fact, I keep my stone in there all the time. One, it makes the oven run more efficiently and two, finding somewhere else to store the stone would be a pain.

When you're ready to start, take your stone out & remember, it will be hot! Spread a little whole durum wheat flour (or just flour if you haven't got that) over it. The gritty texture is good. If you can toss your dough, go for it. If not, shape it into a decent ball-shape, put it on the stone, sprinkle it with some flour and get out your rolling pin. Roll it out across the stone. Let the edges start to hang a little off the stone. You'll fold them back up to make the edge of the crust (nice and simple is the key!).

~Not a bad looking pizza dough. You'll be surprised how thin you can roll it!~

When you've got yourself a decent looking pizza dough, put it back in the oven SANS toppings for about 10 minutes. This will help ensure that the dough actually cooks and gets nice & pizza crispy. Otherwise you run the risk of feeling like you're eating pizza on soft bread.

Now it is time for the toppings. You know what you like, so go for it. I will share with you what I ended up putting on our two pizzas from the other night.

~Pizza #1: homemade marinara sauce (made with homegrown tomatoes), ground beef (from Bright Farm in Floyd), mozzarella cheese, mild cheddar cheese, pepperoni, and Amish Bleu Cheese (found out the Co-op), all topped with a good sprinkling of organic garlic powder~

~Yup, that's real Bleu Cheese on there. Review - it was quite yummy!~

~Pizza #2: Made on a cookie sheet rather than a pizza stone (a good alternative). Topped with pesto sauce, caramelized onions, roasted garlic, and .... ~

~ .. lots of fresh mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, freshly grated Monterey jack cheese, and Parmesan & Romano cheese .. as well as some more organic garlic powder for good measure~
My apologies for the lack of "fresh out of the oven" pizza photos, but you can understand that by the time these were both done there was a family of hungry, salivating people demanding slices!!
And .. aside from the time the dough spends in the bread machine, I can get these pizzas made, cooked, and on the table in about 30 minutes. Even delivery places can't promise you that anymore!

What to Expect

2010-01-20T07:40:00.000-08:00
There are lots and lots of food blogs out there. It gets quite confusing trying to sort them all out. With the start of a new year, I have found myself looking at other food blogs, looking back at this one, and trying to figure out my "mission statement," so to speak. What is this blog for? What is it about?

This is my Kitchen Blog as much, if not more than, it is my food blog. In fact, it isn't always going to be a "food" blog because a lot more goes on in the kitchen than just food for eating. There are Herbal Remedies being made. There are soaps being made. Food that is good for going places (insert silly joke about taking food out for a night on the town here). And so on.

But, most of all, this blog is written by a mom. Hence the friggin' name! :) This is a mama's kitchen. That means you're not going to find a lot of terribly fancy food on here. And if you do, it has to pass the "mom test" - which is something along the lines of being "easy" (quick?) to prepare and make, kid approved, and so on.
There are a lot of really fantastic blogs, that I love, that tackle some pretty high falutin' foods .... but this just ain't one of them folks. I'm a stay-at-home mom with two wild boys, who are being homeschooled. We're also urban homesteaders with gardens to tend to, animals to care for, and so on.

So, this blog is more simple, and that ain't bad. If you're new to the kitchen, you're often overwhelmed. Don't be here. This is about getting in the kitchen, making it accessible, making healthy, and making it homemade, even when you feel like you don't have time! I want to encourage more people to get into their own kitchens and get away from pre-made, processed, faux-foods. This is about REAL food!

Tonight I'm making pizza for dinner. I'll try and be good and take some photos of it, as I thought I had blogged about homemade pizza before and just realized I hadn't. Bear with me while I work out some changes on here to try and make things easier to find. It's gotta be easy, it's gotta be practical - some kitchen rules of sorts.

Now let's get cookin'..

Mashed Potatoes Gettin' Good

2010-01-10T13:44:00.000-08:00
~Probably my favorite food in the whole wide world! But what is in these would surprise you.~

Mashed Potatoes. Ok, not the most shocking of all posts, but my favorite food so I'm writing about it. This particular batch is a little bit different though, even as far as my usual mashed potatoes go. This was one of the key "I'm not sure about this" recipes from my new Deceptively Delicious cookbook. Ok, well, this isn't exactly her recipe .. I make some rocking mashed potatoes on my own, but I did try her add in. So, here we go:

"New" Mashed Potatoes:
the title in the book is just "mashed potatoes" and you can find it on page 80

1) Get yourself some potatoes. I always use organic potatoes, locally grown when possible, grown ourselves is the best. Again, I make enough for seconds and leftovers, so I used a 2lb bag.
~ Wash your potatoes, peel if you'd like. I leave the skins on, more nutrients there (plus I'm allergic to peeling potatoes, no joke). Cut the potatoes into at least quarters, if not a little smaller.
~ From here you can toss them into your pot of water, OR you can add some extra nutrients by using some homemade chicken stock!
~ Boil 10-15 minutes till they're easily pierced with a fork. -- Eco-Note - put a lid on the pot when you set it to boil. You'll save energy that way and your potatoes will cook faster.

2) Add some Goodness. There are several things you can add to your mashed potatoes to increase the goodness but I'll start with the Deceptively Delicious add-in to be fair.
~ When you're ready to get mixin' add 1 cup pureed cauliflower. (The recipe calls for 1/2 c., I doubled the recipe, so there ya go). Like I said earlier, this is one recipe I wasn't sure about. To date, every time I've tried cauliflower I've HATED it!! Yes, like a little kid!! UGH!! But I was curious to try this out ... "let's see if she can make a believer out of me" kinda thing. I steamed the cauliflower like she said and have to admit it smelled pretty good. I was looking forward to making the potatoes!
~ I also LOVE garlic. Again, organic & local are the best. We planted a respectable sized garlic garden this year, yay!! Garlic is really good for you too. Roast a head of garlic and then put the cloves into the mixer. Yummy, and now a must-have with my potatoes.
~ Garbanzo Beans! I cheat here and use a store-bought can. Organic as often as possible. When adding these to mashed potatoes, toss them into the pot to boil with the potatoes!!! <-- NOTE THAT, cook these babies first! They'll soften up and mush into the potatoes perfectly when you get them all into the blender.
~ Some Dairy: You know to add some butter. Use real butter & don't be afraid of it. You also know to add milk, which you can substitute with buttermilk if you'd like. Add the milk last. If you want some "zest" add sour cream. If you like adding sour cream but want it to be a little healthier, add plain yogurt. You can't tell the difference, and you'll be adding B vitamins as well as saving some calories & fat by not using sour cream. This last batch I didn't add sour cream or yogurt to, and I used milk with. My final dairy add-in, which I did put in there was a package of cream cheese. Insanely delicious with mashed potatoes. Don't cheat yourself on flavor here by trying to get reduced or fat-free ... go for the real thing!

Mash It All Up:
~ Drain your potatoes and get them into your mixer. You can also mash by hand if you want and I will give you massive points for doing so!!
~ For these potatoes I added butter, 1 cup pureed cauliflower, 1 roasted garlic bulb (minus the cloves I couldn't resist eating first), and a package of cream cheese.
~ Get the mixin' going on and see how the consistency is. If it is how you like it, you don't need milk. I did decide to add some milk though.

The Result:
Oh MAMA!! These were some GOOD potatoes!! I didn't notice the cauliflower at all, so she convinced me there. Everyone else liked them as well. Definitely try this out. Don't be scared to add some stuff to your mashed potatoes. Make them healthier for you and your family. Comfort food just got even better.

Mama Taney's Hokie Ham Biscuits

2010-01-07T11:11:00.000-08:00
~The Hokie Bird running onto the field at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, VA~

My apologies for the lack of food photos once again. These are ham biscuits that I first tried at a tailgating party at Lane Stadium before a Virginia Tech game. I've since adapted the recipe into a really kick-ass recipe. For those of you who don't know, we're avid Hokie fans. If you don't know what a Hokie is, or just need some team-spirit reminders, click here: http://www.vt.edu/about/hokie.html. Now, back to the recipe.

Mama Taney's Hokie Ham Biscuits:

1/4 cup butter
1 TB mustard
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 TB garlic powder
pinch of dill
6 slices Swiss cheese, quartered
1 1/2 lb ham, sliced thinly
24 (approx. 2 packages) rolls, Parker-House style

To Make:
~Melt your butter. Add next 4 ingredients to melted butter and blend together well.
~In a greased 13x9 pan, place the bottom halves of the rolls (I find it best to completely separate the rolls from each other, but try to keep matching tops and bottoms). On each roll place a little bit of ham and a one of the quartered pieces of Swiss cheese. Put the tops back on. *If you want, you can add a little extra mustard here on the rolls, we personally don't though*
~Spoon/Pour the butter mixture over the biscuits. This is where it is nice to have the biscuits separated from each other, as it helps the mixture get in between each biscuit.

Cook at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. We don't tend to cover them when cooking them, but you can if you'd like.

The Result:
Prepare for these to go quickly. In fact, double the recipe and have more ready, because they will seriously disappear on you!! These are must haves at tailgating parties, but great for other gatherings (such as holiday parties). They're so good, that this is the reason I've posted the recipe - it's gotten that many rave reviews and requests for the recipe. Hence also the lack of photo.

"Burgers 1" ~ a review

2010-01-04T10:39:00.000-08:00
I wrote about getting this new cookbook in my last post. Since I've decided to try it out, I thought I would review the recipes as I go. My apologies in not having a photo to match this recipe .. sometimes cooking dinner for a hungry family and taking photos just do not go hand in hand.

~My new cookbook, as I try to sneak more fruit & veggies into my/our diets~

In the interest of space, I'm going to type out how I made the dish, which may or may not follow the recipe in the book to the letter. Sometimes you run out of things, or inspiration calls me elsewhere. I will make sure to note the proper title of the recipe though, as well as the page it can be found on, for those who want to look it up themselves. Here we go.

Burgers 1 - page 111:

*1 lb ground beef (pasture-raised & from Bright Farm in Floyd)
*1 cup breadcrumbs - at the suggestion of my sister-in-law, Gemma, I used fresh, homemade bread & crumbled it up. Our homemade bread is made with a mixture of local unbleached white & whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, and local honey.
*4 TB Ketchup - again, I used my homemade ketchup that was made with our own organically grown heirloom tomatoes.
*1 cup carrot puree - made with organic carrots
*4 cloves garlic, minced

~ Blend all ingredients well, and form into small patties. I tried to keep in mind that a serving size of meat is approximately the size of a deck of cards & made the burgers no larger. I got 9 patties of varying sizes.
~ Heat up your skillet, I used my trusty cast-iron one as it holds heat so well. I heated it up on high, then kept it somewhere around medium, adjusting higher or lower as needed. Pour a little olive oil in, no more than a tablespoon or two. Put your patties in the skillet and cook for about 5 minutes or so per side.
~ We served these with a slice of American cheese for the kids, and then for us a slice of American cheese, homemade zucchini relish, homemade ketchup, and mustard. All of the burgers were served on whole-wheat hamburger buns (store-bought) that I had open-face toasted in our little toaster oven.

The Substitutions & Changes:
*The recipe was actually for 1/2 the amount of meat, but since I had thawed a pound I decided to double the recipe and freeze the leftovers. *A good idea for a quick meal for a night where time is rushed!*
*The recipe also calls for using 1/4 cup (or in my case, 1/2 cup) skim milk. 1) We don't have skim milk and likely never will. 2) I was worried this would make things too moist, so decided to leave out the milk till the end to see if it was needed. Gemma, my Italian sister-in-law, swears that using fresh bread for breadcrumbs will increase the moisture, while using store-bought will make meat dry. I trusted her knowledge here (you gotta try her meatballs!). Our moisture content was fine.
*The recipe also called for using low-sodium soy sauce. We use tamari in place of soy sauce, but happened to be all out. Since I put carrots into my basic tomato sauce I made the decision to use some homemade ketchup in place of the soy sauce. 1) Ketchup & Burgers just go hand in hand. 2) I know the veggies that go into my ketchup and felt it was a healthy decision.

The Review:
These made themselves into patties quite nicely, and we only had minimal problems with crumbling - no more than we would usually have as we test out new burger recipes.
Justin got worried that these really were not cooking as quickly as the cookbook said they would. We decided to try grilling them, but it seems our grill doesn't like cold cold weather and wouldn't work right. The recipe says to finish them off in the oven, at 400 degrees. We were already baking some fries at about that temperature, so we tossed the first round of burgers on a pan and into the oven to finish off. The second round of burgers (can't cook them all at one time on the skillet!) seemed to cook with better timing. Perhaps it's just been a while since we've cooked burgers indoors on the skillet?? One thing we did notice was this: as the carrot cooked it seemed to darken a little, which gave the appearance of the meat not being done. All said and done though, this was only a minor hiccup.
Taste - actually very yummy!! The kids didn't notice that these burgers were any different than ones they've had before. They did have a slightly more "veggie" taste to them that I noticed, however I've also noticed a very intense beef flavor when we've made just straight-up hamburgers. I'm wondering if using the soy sauce wouldn't help give it more of a beefy flavor. However, it didn't taste like a veggie-burger, and was still really good. It was moist and delicious!!

Overall:
I will definitely be making this one again. All four of us liked it, and that's good enough for me. I liked knowing there were extra veggies in my burger. I am eager to try it using soy sauce (or, more accurately, tamari) instead of ketchup. If the results are significantly different I will let you know. Otherwise, if you want to make your burgers a little more healthy for you, then I would definitely recommend making these!

~~A Follow-Up Review: ~~
Like I said, I made a double batch of these for freezing and serving again later. Leftovers rock, plain and simple. I heated the kids each up a burger for lunch one day this past week, zapping it in the microwave. They crumbled. <-- The burgers that is, not the kids.
Perhaps it was some of the substitutions? Would "true" bread crumbs have been better at keeping it a little drier? Was that the problem? Justin blames the carrots. I'm not certain. It wasn't necessarily a end-of-the-world, awful crumbling, but a crumbling none-the-less, which made lunch messy. Shannon didn't have such a hard time (he's almost 6), but it did take Tristan a bit to get the hang of how to eat it without it all falling out of the bun (he's 3 1/2).
Points deducted.
I'll still try the recipe again. But it is really a big thing to be able to have leftovers we can eat again. We'll see, and I'll let you know!

Fuzzy Brain Findings

2009-12-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

~Ok, first I want to acknowledge that the title there sounds more like it ought to be for a Halloween recipe than anything else. Just stick with me, I'll get around to making sense eventually~

I've been wondering why it was that, as much as I love to cook and, even more, as much as I love to bake ... why don't I make Christmas cookies? For the holidays I do make fudge, but that is usually only done a day or so before our Christmas Eve Open House Party and more for gifts than anything else. Shoot, I think this is the second year Santa has not gotten cookies from us. (Don't worry, we're pretty certain he just helped himself to some of the fudge instead!) I see friends posting about all the holiday goodies they're baking and wonder ... why am I not doing this?? The only things that become absolute must-haves this time of year for us are: 1)Chex-Mix & 2)Sausage Balls ~ the latter of which we reserve, again, for gatherings.

So, I keep wondering what is up with me, with us, not demanding more sweets. I was pondering this as I snacked on some Sugar Cookies that someone brought as a gift. I ate 4, maybe 5 of those. Then, it began to hit me. My tummy began rumbling ~ I always begin to think of that silly old Pooh Bear when that happens. I felt like I needed to go for a jog ... or into detox or something.

And then, something really magical happened. My fuzzy little brain began adding things up! If you know me, you know how fuzzy my brain gets when it comes to mathematical stuff, so wow ... a Christmas miracle of sorts.

I noticed that, when I'm not feeling well, when my tummy is rumbly, and especially if all of that is caused by a night of too much drinking, I reach to my one tried and true remedy: Dr. Pepper. We each have our things, Dr. Pepper is mine. Then, because I haven't been feeling too good, I start making bad decisions about what to eat. Sipping on soda, snacking on cookies, almost ready to give in and order take-out pizza for dinner. Yikes.

~I finally bought this book when I found it at Big Lots today or $3, down from the cover price of $24.95~
Now, if you know me at all, you know my love for Nina Planck and her book 'Real Food.' I had checked 'Deceptively Delicious' out from the library after hearing lots of raves about it. It was pretty intriguing, but I let it go without too much thought. When we left the house to run a few quick errands today, I was starting to feel the need to detox. So, when I spotted this book on the shelf for $3 I snatched up a copy for myself, then ended up going back and grabbing one for a friend as well.

I have to admit that right now I actually have that Activia commercial running through my head. Thanks Jamie Lee Curtis. You know, you feel like crud so you make bad decisions with your eating, which just makes you keep feeling like crud. Well, Activia isn't what I am needing, but veggies are!
'Deceptively Delicious' is, according to the cover anyway, "simple secrets to get your kids eating good food." Ok, I don't but into trying to sneak healthy food into my kids. We have a pretty darn lush garden, we don't give them lots of sweets (Santa brought always brings apples and oranges and, seriously, I probably have the only kids who would be delighted to be enrolled in the Fruit of the Month Club as a gift), they know about veggies and love them.
But I realized something today -- it isn't exactly OUR kids I'm worried about at the moment. It's my own damn inner child that needs to be tricked!! I was the picky eater growing up, and I am still really, embarrassingly horrible about eating veggies. I want to be better, I really do, but it's a long road ahead of me. I'm working on it.

This is where I would really recommend this book. That, or if your kids are picky eaters like I was. The basic idea she goes with here is using pureed foods (veggies and fruits) in places you really wouldn't expect them. There is a recipe for Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes that includes, among other things, yellow squash puree, blueberry puree, and spinach puree. A recipe for Mozzarella Sticks that uses: whole-wheat bread crumbs, flaxseed meal, & cauliflower puree, along with mozzarella. ~ Now here I will follow the advice of Nina Planck and try finding raw, whole milk mozzarella instead of the skim-milk advised in the recipe. This book has gotten a LOT of hype as well as some seriously rave reviews, so I'm hopeful about the sneaking of extra veggies into our daily routine. If any of these dishes can actually get me to eat cauliflower, something my own inner-kiddo immensely detests, then I'll know it's a real keeper! Here is a link to her website if you wanna check it out: http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com
And, if by New Year's Eve you are starting to make a resolution of hitting the gym because you are feeling funky from all those sweets, I encourage you to pause for a moment. Take a deep, cleansing breathe in. Look at the food around you. Adding more exercise is almost always a fantastic idea, but look at what you're eating on a regular basis. Maybe the answer is right in front of you.

Homemade Bisquick Mix

2009-12-17T09:53:00.000-08:00
It's that time of year again: time for Sausage Balls!!! I used to have my grandmother's recipe (and still likely do ....... somewhere ..), but since it has gotten lost in the archives, I've been using other recipes. Not too bad, except they ALL call for the same ingredient, as did my grandmother's --- Bisquick!! UGH!!!! That crap will NOT enter my kitchen!!! Turns out Homemade Bisquick is cheap and easy to make. And a lot better than the stuff in the box. So, here we go.

~A pastry cutter really would've helped here. See my broken, wooden fork?~

Homemade Bisquick Mix
(recipe adapted from http://www.recipezaar.com/Homemade-Bisquick-Mix-69051)

*6 cups all-purpose flour
*3 Tablespoons baking powder
*1 Tablespoon salt
*1 cup lard

~ Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together well. Cut in the softened lard with a pastry cutter. I made two mistakes here: I used frozen lard thinking it would warm up quickly enough .. it didn't and it took me slowly, gently heating the mixture to get it to melt. Also, this is one of those times when you realize why you really ought to own a pastry cutter. I used my wooden fork, and ended up breaking off on of the tines. Don't worry, it was a clean break, no splinters in the food!
~Once it is all well-mixed together, store in air-tight containers in the fridge. This makes 7 cups of "mix" and will last up to 4 months in the fridge.

~Ta-Da!! The finished product, just waiting to be called upon for use in Sausage Balls~

Ok, now I know some of you have probably just cringed at one of the ingredients in my list .. but before I address that I'm going to go in order as there is something to be said about almost all the ingredients.

*The flour - I used about a 1/2 & 1/2 mixture of unbleached white flour and whole wheat flour that I get from a local mill. Justin doesn't care for all whole wheat flour, so we've found blending the two works quite well for us.
*The baking powder - I used Rumford's Baking Powder as it is aluminum free. There has been research done that links Alzheimer's disease and aluminum. Aluminum builds up in your body, mostly in your brain. It is damage that is done over time. It also can give things a metallic, "tin" taste to them. Enuf' said for me.
*The salt - We've switched to Real Salt. To quote their homepage: Real Salt is an all-natural, kosher-certified sea salt extracted from deep within the earth, crushed, screened, and packaged. Real Salt's unique flecks of color are the result of more than 50 natural trace minerals essential to human health (including natural iodine!). For more info - http://www.realsalt.com/

And this brings me to the last ingredient, the one ingredient that I simply HAD to change from the original recipe. The original recipe called for vegetable shortening. I used lard. Not store-bought lard. This is lard that I rendered myself. The fat came from the farm where we get our meat, and was pasture-raised and organic. This is real lard.
Most people still have a hard time getting over using lard. I'll admit, it even took me a bit. Then I read Real Food; What to eat & why by Nina Plack. Get this book & change your life. To quote Nina about lard: The thing about lard is that it is mostly unsaturated fat, which nobody knows, and the monounsaturated in it is the same one in olive oil. (this was from this Q&A with her -http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/17130/)
Vegetable shortening also contains hydrogenated oils. Something really not good for you. Again, read her book, and you'll know why you won't ever look back.

A spoonful of sugar

2009-12-12T16:12:00.001-08:00

Have you got Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins going through your head yet?? I know I do. So now we have before us the days when the sunlight is limited, the winds whip through us, and the cold chills to our very bones. Now are the days, especially mornings, when coffee beckons us more than ever. You might think you need that java to get you going in the morning all year long, but when your feet leave the warmth of the covers on your bed and land on cold, wooden floors .... well, then you really want the coffee!!
And, of course, you want to make sure you're drinking some organic, fair-trade coffee. Not only is "regular" coffee grown with an INSANE amount of chemicals and pesticides (on the list of things grown most saturated, coffee ranks high up there), but also, the farming business isn't kind to small farmers or the region that is good for coffee. So, if you love your coffee, then love where it comes from and how it got from plant to your cup.
But the main reason I am writing this isn't so much about the coffee itself. It's about the sugar you use. Or, more accurately, how much sugar you're using.
Personally, when I started drinking coffee I was one of those "would you like some coffee with your sugar?" kinda drinkers. Pour it on! Now, I'm trying to cut back. And one of those ways I've found is a pretty damn obvious one. Use a smaller spoon.

~Sometimes, size really DOES matter .... sorry guys, but it's the truth!~

For me, I "need" two spoonfuls of sugar. I've managed to wean myself down to that, but I just can't seem to be content without two spoonfuls. Still, I wanted to use less sugar. That's when I noticed my old baby spoon gathering dust. *TA DA*
Just like the wise advice of using smaller plates for meals to make you feel like you've gotten just as much food, this tiny little spoon still allows me to have two spoonfuls, heaping spoonfuls at that, but with obviously much less sugar! I wasn't even fully aware at how much sugar I was able to keep out of my coffee until I took this picture, but it is a darn significant amount.

~My new favorite mug for coffee and my two new favorite spoons~

I also usually drink out of one of those mega-mugs. You know the bad boys I'm talking about. But, I've noticed that when I drink coffee out of it I tend to get the coffee jitters, as well as the fact that I'm more likely to have a headache get triggered. So, my "new" favorite mug for coffee is one that was my Mom's and that I grew up seeing in the cabinet. Just the right size.
Another thing that is really cool is that I get to use my baby spoon again. I mean, where is the logic in giving an infant or toddler a silver spoon??? Not like they can fully appreciate it! You might be able to just barely make it out in the photo, but my spoon has my initials on it. I'm pretty certain it was, many years ago, a gift from my grandmother. So, 1) proves the well-known logic that grandparents have no clue what a good gift is when you're a kid (JUST KIDDING!) and 2) it reminds me of her. Sweet nostalgia and familial ties.
The other spoon is one of those super-hip spoons that I'm sure have some proper use, but I just don't know what it is. It came to me as many things do, passed down through the generations. Don't tell Miss Manners or Emily Post on me please, but I just don't know my formal table settings that well. All I know is that it makes a really cool, kinda Art Deco-ish sugar spoon for me. I feel hip, and that isn't something that happens that often.
If you don't have your baby spoon, or you don't have the random little spoon that only very proper ladies know what to do with (and I have my doubts there too), head to your local antique store. Hell, look on ETSY. Either way, you can probably very easily find a spoon for you for less than a cup o' joe (do they still make those) at Starbucks. You'll be using less sugar and you'll be recycling! Makes that morning cup or three of coffee suddenly a lot sweeter, doesn't it?

Leftover Turkey Ideas

2009-12-02T18:12:00.000-08:00
My apologies for the lack of snazzy photos to accompany this post. What can I say? When you get cooking in the kitchen a lot of time the camera is the last thing on your mind. And, besides that, my kitchen is often such a clutter that I am not really sure I would WANT a photo of it up! hahaha

Every year we order our turkeys from Bright Farm in Floyd, Va. They're pasture-raised, we pick them fresh out of the cold water, and there just is NOT any going back to the store for some wanna-be sad turkey. Last year we had a good 25lb bird, this year we managed to pick out a smaller bird ~ 17lbs. For five adults and two kids! Everyone took home leftovers and still we were left with a LOT of leftover turkey to eat.

Obviously, we are not the only people with this "dilemma" as websites abound with ideas on ways to serve leftover turkey. But, something leaves me very disappointed with most of these sites and the things I've seen. I STILL feel like I'm eating turkey!

I know "DUH!! You ARE eating turkey!" But, who wants to feel like they're still eating turkey? BBQ'd turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey with cheese, turkey casserole, turkey with mayonnaise ... I'm beginning to feel like Bubba talking about shrimp.

~You know you love this scene!~

Anyway, so here are a couple new ideas. Pardon me for only having two, but seriously, you gotta meet some serious criteria to make this worthy albeit tiny little list: pretty much, you gotta make me feel HAPPY to be eating this and NOT feel like I am trying to finish off something in the fridge before it goes bad!

Idea #1: White Turkey Chili ~ here is the link for the recipe we use: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/White-Chicken-Chili-11452 ~ substitute turkey for chicken (duh!) and before you know it you're actually hoping you have leftovers!! This is a really rocking dish for football season too, so bring on the game!

Idea #2: Jambalaya ~ this was a first for us this year. Seriously, I've never made jambalaya before today, but I gotta say this was a kickin' dish! Here is the link for the recipe we used: http://www.recipezaar.com/Chicken-Shrimp-and-Andouille-Jambalaya-28165 ~ Again, switch out turkey for chicken. In this dish I gotta tell you, it REALLY isn't noticeable! Another recipe that makes me look forward to eating more turkey the week after Thanksgiving.

And, of course, the really big reminder of things to do with leftover turkey .... MAKE STOCK!!! Turkey stock is awesome and works magic just like chicken stock does! If you are tossing out those bones from the carcass without making stock you are tossing out some liquid gold folks.

So ... what do you do with your leftover turkey?? Got any worthy recipes? I wanna hear them!

Garlic & Honey

2009-10-18T18:26:00.000-07:00
My apologies, I know I've neglected this page for a while. Cold weather makes me want to be in the kitchen more, so I'm trying to pay more attention. Here we go!
Cold Season is upon us. It used to be a time for stocking up on some kitchen essentials, warm blankets, tissues, and maybe some silly magazines to get you through those "day-in-bed" spells. Or maybe I'm the only one who somehow feels the need to indulge in magazines like Cosmo when I'm not feeling good?? Cheap promises of Utopia if only you buy this $1000 outfit makes me laugh and feel a little bit better. Don't ask, I've probably said too much.
I'm blessed to be part of a really amazing online group of Herbal Healers. We've come together thanks to the teachings of Susun Weed (a friend introduced me to her books years ago ~ thank you Tree!), and the wisdom that flows within this group really makes you more appreciative and grateful for "wise women."
Here is one of those recipes. It is a very powerful cold remedy. ***Ok, time to admit here, I haven't actually tried this one yet, but I've heard LOTS of good things!! I promise to post as soon as I try it for myself!!***

To Start:
Get yourself some local, preferably organic honey. Local honey is really good for you because it contains local pollen .. meaning ingesting it will help build your immune system. Works wonders with allergies. Organic & local garlic is always the best, but supermarket stuff will do ok here too.

~the garlic in the jar~

First, don't peel the garlic. If you can't tell from the photo, this is just a wide-mouth jelly jar (maybe 6 oz). Then fill it full of garlic. To fill this jar it took over an entire bulb of garlic. Next, pour honey over it. Sometimes you may need to poke & mash the garlic a bit to make sure the honey gets all the way down. Since this was a wide mouth jar, no worries there. However, make sure that the garlic is completely covered in honey. (It isn't in the photo)

Seal a lid on tightly, and place the jar of honey in a bowl. The honey can seep out a little bit, so the bowl is a good catch-all.
While some say you can keep the garlic in there all the time, it is also ok to take it out after 2-3 days. Our plan is to take some out and leave some. You can use the galic you took out for cooking.
Keep this in the pantry, as honey doesn't spoil and will preserve the garlic.

To Use: take 2 teaspoons 4 times a day for colds.

Let me know what you think, and how it works for you. I'm grateful for the Wise Women who shared this with me and eager to hear how it works for you!

Camping & Cooking - Hamburger Stew

2009-07-06T06:59:00.000-07:00
One really simple way to have some yummy, healthy food is to freeze leftovers at home, take them with you (use the frozen food in your cooler to save on ice and keep other things cool), and heat it back up when you're ready for it. We did that this time with Hamburger Stew.

~Cooking on the campfire~

HAMBURGER STEW - recipe from http://www.recipezaar.com/Hamburger-Stew-195266

Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs hamburger meat - I used two pounds of local, pasture-raised hamburger
1/2 tablespoon instant minced garlic - I minced up at least 5 cloves myself
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
4 potatoes, cubed
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 (14 ounce) can carrots, undrained - I used fresh, organic carrots here (NOT canned!)
1 (14 ounce) can green beans, undrained - I drained mine
1 (14 ounce) can corn, undrained
1 (14 ounce) can peas, undrained
1 (4 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained -- For these last two ingredients, I didn't have them on hand. Instead I used up a couple cups worth of homemade ketchup (it is NOT like store-bought!!). It was a wonderful substitution.

~Since I was lacking all things fresh on hand, I did use canned goods when making this. If you wanted to use all fresh veggies from your garden or farmer's market I would say "go for it!". Just make yourself up some nice beef stock, and add some of that in to substitute for the lack of water from the cans.

To Cook -- Starting at Home!:
Brown your beef in a skillet, along with the the other first four ingredients. When it's browned, combine it along with the remaining ingredients in a nice stock-pot. Over a medium-high heat, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and let simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occaisionally.
Obviously, you could make this while camping. If you were going to do so, I would definitely use fresh ingredients (picked up at the Farmer's Market on your way out!), and take along some pre-made frozen beef stock to add to the mix. If you're going to do it this way, you already know what you need to bring, so I don't feel a need to go through the steps.

We ate this for dinner one night at home, then I froze the leftovers. I find old yogurt containers really wonderful for freezing stuff for camping. Not the tiny ones mind you, no I'm talking about the 32oz (2 lb) containers. Freeze and label!
We take a small saucepan with us camping. This is one reason I like the yogurt containers - they're round and taller than they are wide. This allows the food to slide out fairly easily, and you don't have to worry about frozen, square edges that don't fit in your saucepan. If it's taller than your saucepan, it'll "melt" down as it cooks without making a mess.

To reheat for camping:
Get your coals going nice and hot. If you will notice in the photo above, we didn't use a grill over our fire for this. We often don't. We were able to balance this nicely on the logs, over the flames. Since this was a dinner meal, we had the bigger logs in there for to start building the fire for the night. Morning times you don't want as big a fire, it would be a waste of wood. Here it is all good.
You'll need to let this cook for about 15 minutes or so. I didn't have a watch (I was camping and relaxing, give me a break!), so I can't be precise. It will boil and sizzle, so stir it. It will take a little longer than you think to reheat this nicely. Do taste tests every time you stir it up. You don't want the bottom to burn before everything has had a chance to thaw.

This was definitely a nice dinner to have. Lots of veggies, great hamburger flavor too. I really liked the use of the homemade ketchup, but wouldn't dare substitute store-bought!! You can add extra veggies to this as you would like. To be honest, I wasn't too sure about the addition of green beans, but really liked them.
Try it and see what you think.

Camping & Cooking ~ Bacon Hash

2009-07-05T15:33:00.000-07:00
For a lot of people, cooking while you're camping in the woods is a no-brainer but, for a lot of other people it seems you're limited to hotdogs, chips, and soda. Not necessarily bad things when you're camping, but not really GOOD things either.
I didn't grow up camping, and to my knowledge, never tent camped till I was in high-school or college (probably the latter). You can imagine my cooking skills DEFINITELY fell into the latter of the two sets mentioned above. So, here is my attempt to, very honestly, share some "Cooking While Camping" knowledge.
This is, hopefully, the start of a new special segment here. For this, I'm going to assume you're camping like we do. We usually camp fairly near our car, though without electricity or water hook-ups. We go to tent-camping sites, usually in local National Forests (we love Arcadia in VA). We're able to bring coolers and therefore prepare some things ahead of time. We ALWAYS strive to be as eco-minded as possible when camping, leaving the site the same or better than we we found it!!! You won't find paper plates here!
Now that we've got that cleared up, down to cooking. Let's start with the morning, because it is a good place to start. I found this recipe thanks to the ever-wise & inspiring Nick from Macheesmo. Here is the link for cooking this in the kitchen: http://www.macheesmo.com/2009/06/bacon-hash/?3c89ce38. This recipe was a perfect one for camping since Nick describes it as "There are some meals that were made to be eaten after a night out. This is most definitely one of them." I take Nick's word on things, and we definitely were going to be drinking the night before we would eat this.

BACON HASH

For the recipe itself, I'm going to advise you to check out Nick's (see above link). Honestly, I forgot to take "prep photos" but his really kick-ass, so do yourself a BIG OLE favor and check it out.
We began prepping the ingredients Tuesday night. We cut up several small potatoes and let them sit in a bowl of water in the fridge over night. Wednesday (the day before we left for camping), I zapped them in the microwave (still in the water) for a couple minutes before draining them. Then I quickly chopped up the bacon, onions, and garlic to mix in with the potatoes. I poured a little roasted garlic olive oil over it all, to ensure cooking, and wrapped the whole shebang tightly in aluminum foil, labeled it, and tossed it into the freezer.

Some things I've found: 1)Cooking in foil is VERY convenient when camping, resulting in easy cooking and clean-up. 2)If you freeze your foil pack well enough, it will "hold it's shape" in your cooler as well as keep other items cool in there.

Here is the foil-pack of Bacon Hash, put on a small grill over the fire first thing Friday morning.

Here it is, flipped once and still cooking. It will hiss and sizzle and you will be sure you've burned it. You may blacken the edges, but fear not. Always flip your food if you can when cooking in a foil pack, and never assume it's cooked just because it sounds like it is boiling or sizzling.

Off the fire and opened up. You can see where the edges did get blackened a little, but that was the utterly delicious crispy parts. This is SO much better than Pop-Tarts in the morning!!!

The finished result. Justin had already eaten half his bowl by the time I could take this photo.

As you can see in the photo, we use some old enamel-ware bowls that were once my grandmother's, and we also bring our own utensils. It makes camping more pleasureable and clean-up really isn't that much more of a hassle. This dish came out wonderfully! The bacon didn't get dark and crispy like it would cooked in a skillet (which IS an option when camping!), but it was still yummy. It definitely hit the spot for first thing in the morning and made us very, very happy. Even if you aren't drinking the night before, this is still a yummy breakfast when camping.

Clean-Up:
1) Either put the aluminum foil in the trash, or save it for recycling when you get home. We often have two "trash" containers just for this purpose.
2) Fill up an old two-liter bottle (or something of the like) with water and a good squirt of eco-friendly dish detergent. If you want, fill up a second with just water.
3) Bring a good wash-rag from home. Put a little soapy water on it, and use it to clean off your plates, bowls, and utensils. If you brought clean water, feel free to rinse and repeat, but honestly, we skipped that the last couple of times with no ill side-effects.
4) Put your dishes away. We bring a "kitchen box" along, stocked with plates, bowls, utensils, etc. After we're done, they go back in there. If we're near the car we keep them in the car to keep any bugs out. This may evolve over time.

Inside & Outside Cheeseburgers

2009-06-15T08:33:00.000-07:00
My mother claims to not be a cook at all, but this is one of my earliest memories of her cooking. The earliest is cookies cooling on the chopping block in our kitchen - but what kid doesn't remember that first?? I think she made these about the time I was in first grade. They were awesome then, and they're just as awesome now.

the burger, ready for cheese

"Inside & Outside" Cheeseburgers:

We started with 1/4 lb (roughly) of hamburger per burger. Our meat comes from a local farm and is organically, pasture-raised. This is real meat.
For these burgers, I first mixed in some spices with the meat. For the kids and myself, I used some organic garlic powder (although some freshly roasted garlic, or just garlic cloves would've rocked even more). For Justin, I made one burger with chili powder, garlic powder, and chipotle pepper; and then the second one with garlic powder and some HOT! HOT!! Pepper Flakes.
The Inside: make a well in the center of the burger, and fill it with cheese. I used just some general marble, shredded cheese here. You could go fancy and use blue cheese, feta cheese, or grate yourself up some homemade raw milk cheese. But the general shredded stuff works well too. ~ For extra flavors: add some spices to the center with the cheese. I also added a little bit of ketchup to the boys' burgers.

filled with cheese, ready to be closed-up

Next: close-up the burger around the cheese. This really isn't that difficult at all. If you do have trouble at first, don't fret. By the second or third burger, you should easily have the hang of it.
Cook Em: We grilled ours on a nice hot grill outside. It's the essence of summer cooking isn't it?? No grill, don't worry, you can pan-cook these babies and still get delicious results. ~ Here's the trick to making sure they don't shrink up on you: before you put them on the grill, indent the center with your thumb a little bit. This is a little tricky because the cheese is inside, so make sure not to mess that up. Just a nice, small indention will do.
A second or two before you're ready to pull them off the grill, add a slice or two of cheese on top. American cheese is perfect because of how well it melts, but again, you can make it personal and use another type. Just beware that some cheeses don't melt so well.
Have your buns, extra toppings, and a big appetite ready. These are destined to be crowd pleasers, and are sure to be remembered!!

PS ~ thanks Mom!

Homemade Conditioner for Your Hair

2009-03-30T15:26:00.001-07:00
I've been making our own conditioner for over a year now. While I played around with the "recipe" for a bit, I've finally figured out a good base recipe. I decided to post this here, as it is something you make in your kitchen; kitchens and cooking aren't just for food!
So here is my recipe for Homemade Conditioner:

I use a 1/2 gallon glass milk jug to hold the conditioner. The first thing I add is some apple cider.

As you can see, I fill it up to that base line. If you're using a different type of glass jar, you can guess-timate, or add about a cup worth of apple cider vinegar (err on the less side).
Depending on the season, I will also add up to a 1/2 cup of lemon juice to help lighten up my hair some. I didn't do it this time as I am currently plenty blonde. This would be where you could add other herbs or juices to help infuse your hair with extra color if you wished.

This next step is optional. As you can see in the above photo, I add one tea bag each of Chamomile & Lavender tea and Nettle tea. Chamomile tea is a good herbal conditioner in and of itself ~ I chose the blend just because I liked the scent. I use Nettle tea as nettles are also very good for your hair and scalp. You don't have to use any tea, you can just use plain water if you'd like - it's your choice. However, if you DO use tea, heed this: "warm up" your glass jar first by swirling some hot water inside it and also on the outside (it will feel warm to the touch, just as a nice mug would) -- if not, you run the risk of the glass breaking when you pour boiling water in! I put my tea bags directly in the glass jar and get some water boiling. I will pour the water in after the next step.

Yes, that is beer. Preferably, you want the beer flat. Mainly because then you don't have to worry about waiting for the head to die down. Drink half the beer, pour the other half into the jar. Although you don't have to use beer, this is the ingredient I consider the *key* ingredient. Beer is wonderful at conditioning your hair and I've noticed a great change in my hair since I started adding the beer. Any beer will do. We homebrew, so I use beer I like (you might as well). This was a brown ale, and it has worked quite well. Last time I made conditioner I used some of our Stout beer. It was pure heaven!! The scent was stronger (though it does NOT stay in your hair - you can just smell it while you're in the shower, then it is gone) and this was something I really liked, but that was more thanks to the stout beer than anything else. I wouldn't use miller lite or budweiser, but then again I wouldn't drink that stuff either - I'm a beer snob. But you can use any type of beer. I have a feeling that the heavier beers condition your hair better, but no proof yet to back that up.
After I add the beer, I add the hot/boiling water. I do this over the sink, somewhere where I don't have to have my hands on the jar. I tend to burn myself otherwise. Fill up the jar with the water. You're pretty much done now.

The bottle beside the glass jug is what actually stays in the shower. It isn't anything special, but the top works great for dispensing the conditioner. You could use an old shampoo or conditioner bottle, or even an old sport drink/water bottle. That little pull-up top is what I like, it keeps it all from coming out too fast (this isn't cream rinse!) for me. The bottle is a different color in the photo only because I didn't need to actually fill it up, but took it out of the shower so I could have it in the photo - I had used a different beer last time, hence the different color. You can fill up your bottle right then, or wait till it cools down some. I store the glass jug in the fridge and just fill the bottle up as needed. It has never "gone bad" and is extremely economical!! This is some really good stuff here, we have great hair and no complaints. The only difference I've noticed is that my hair doesn't feel as "instantly" silky as it did with the store-bought stuff, but after my hair dries that goes away. I think I can live with that.

Crock-Pot Sloppy Joe's

2009-03-19T11:42:00.001-07:00
Above is a photo I snapped of the finish product, after we had already eaten it down quite a bit (two sandwiches per person if I remember correctly!). I can't remember the last time I made homemade sloppy joes, but I do know it will be a summer staple now. And, as usual, there is NO GOING BACK to store-bought cans of sloppy joe stuff. blech.
If you aren't completely in love with your Crock-Pot (aka - slow cooker) yet, you're really missing out on a wonderful and lifelong relationship opportunity! I made this dish up on March 7th. Even though we had snow on the 2nd, by the 7th the temperatures were up in the upper 70's here and so that Saturday we were busy bees out in the yard. Cooking dinner wasn't high on my list. Viola - my Crock-Pot to the rescue!!
This recipe comes from a wonderful cookbook: Crock-Pot ~ Best-Loved Slow Cooker Recipes. It was given to me as a gift and is definitely one of my staples now!

Suzie's Sloppy Joes

*3 pounds 95% lean ground beef (I used 1 lb. ground beef, 1 lb. sausage, and 1 lb. ground deer meat - all pasture raised - wonderful results!!)
*1 cup chopped onion
*3 cloves garlic, minced
*1 1/4 cups ketchup (I used 1/4 cup organic store-bought ketchup, then switched to some homemade ketchup for the remainder cup)
*1 cup chopped red bell pepper (I omitted this only because I was out)
*1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
*1/4 cup dark brown sugar
*3 tablespoons prepared mustard
*3 tablespoons vinegar (I left this out only because the homemade ketchup I used has a lot of vinegar in it already)
*2 teaspoons chili powder

~Cook and stir the meat (really, using the blend was awesome!), onion, and garlic in a large, nonstick skillet (I used my good ole cast-iron skillet) over medium-high heat until meat is browned and onion is tender. Drain fat if needed -- since I was using pasture-raised organic meat there is never much fat to drain off, so I skipped this step (not to mention, the extra fat melded the flavors of the 3 meats like a champ). I also added several tablespoons of ketchup & a couple of the Worcestershire sauce directly to the meat, onion, and garlic mixture while it cooked.
~Combine ketchup, bell pepper, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, mustard, vinegar and chili powder in Crock-Pot slow cooker. Stir in meat mixture. Cover; cook on LOW 6-8 hours. To serve, spoon mixture onto hamburger buns. ~~ Freeze leftovers for later!! YUMMY!!

For a side, I cooked up some fresh green beans, as you can clearly see. We did add some cheese to the boys' sloppy joes, but we are a cheese-addicted family!! :) This was definitely a nice dinner to come in to after working out in the yard all day. The best part was the kitchen wasn't all heated up from cooking too! YAY!

St. Patrick's Day Pancakes

2009-03-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

Not your most Irish of dishes, I know. But, our kids LOVE pancakes!!! If you ask Shannon what he wants for dinner there is a pretty certain chance you will get that as an answer. And, like so often happens, I had promised to make them Monday night .. and then forgot .. so, St. Patrick's Day pancakes we had!
First, if you've never made pancakes from scratch you're missing out. Now that we've been making them from scratch, I can't even begin to fathom eating them any other way!! IHOP and Denny's commercials make me sick & angry .. their pancakes (and eggs, and bacon, and so on) look plastic and fake .. not the least bit appetizing! Making them from scratch is so easy!

Here is the recipe. Like so many of my favorite recipes, it comes from my Grandmother's Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. If you don't have one, go to a yard sale, the Goodwill, or wherever and find yourself a copy from about 1963.
Favorite Pancakes:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter

~ Mix all ingredients well & bake on a hot griddle.

I'm not too fancy here. I don't sift my dry ingredients in one bowl, mix my wet ingredients in another and then blend .. I mix 'em all at one together in the same bowl. The batter will be lumpy, and this is ok. I use butter in lieu of oil, although I have been known to use a little bacon fat if I happen to have it. Of course, my butter is my homemade butter, my bacon fat comes from pasture-raised bacon. Our milk is raw milk, the flour usually locally grown and at least 1/2 whole wheat, the sugar is turbinado, and the salt is Real Salt (http://www.realsalt.com).
I DO cook them (as you can see in the photo) in a cast-iron skillet, and I HIGHLY recommend this!! I pre-heat my skillet on medium or medium-high, but as I am cooking I can usually turn it down to medium-low. I LOVE being able to cook on such a low heat without sacrificing anything!! Check out the bottom of my blog for more info about cast-iron cooking and cookware.
For the green coloring I will admit to using green food coloring. I've been reading some about making your own, all-natural food coloring and am VERY interested in this, but it was dinner time, the boys were hungry, I had it on hand.
And there you go, our St. Patrick's Day dinner for 2009. We even had company (Uncle Matt), and everyone left the table happy & with a full belly.

Jewish Penicillin

2009-02-23T12:49:00.000-08:00
Ahh, life here in South Western Virginia. Here we are in February and the weather outside is truly frightful: one day it is in the 60's and less than a week later we're back to in the 30's, along with insane wind and flurries. It really isn't a huge mystery why we're all getting sick, is it?
Justin and I were feeling pretty beat-up last night, and I still had dinner looming ahead of me. At times, cooking is less of a pleasure and more of a chore, but when you're not feeling too good it can appear downright like torture!! But, aha, it would be food to the rescue, via some homemade chicken noodle soup.
Ok, first, some confessions. One, it wasn't chicken noodle soup. It was turkey noodle soup! When we buy turkeys from the farm (pasture raised as they ought to be), we always get at least two. I, of course, make stock with the cooked carcasses, and store that away for future uses. That second turkey though we tend to have a lot of left-overs with that get safely stored away in the freezer. Second Confession: I've NEVER made homemade chicken (or turkey) noodle soup before!! YIKES!! I was raised on Campbell's and until now that had always been good enough. Third Confession: if there had been Campbell's in the cupboard, I probably would've made it last night. I am SO glad we didn't have any!!
Here is the basic recipe:

Chicken or Turkey Noodle Soup:
I chose a regular sized stock-pan, one I would use for making chili in. Into this went frozen and canned (I canned this year!) homemade turkey stock. Don't use water!! I did this, not wanting the flavor to be too strong and I ended up adding some bouillon to it because it tasted to watery ~ bleh! But, if yours comes out watery, know to just add some bouillon to fix it. Pretty much fill up the pot with stock.
Into this I added (all organic stuff): 3 chopped up carrots, 2 diced up onions, 3 cloves of garlic (minced), and some nice amounts (tablespoon or so) of dill, tarragon, and parsley, along with salt & pepper to taste. Bring it all to a boil, reduce heat to a rolling simmer, and let cook about 20 minutes or so ~ I knew it was good to go when the carrots were soft.
We took already-cooked turkey out of the freezer, and heated it up. We then chopped up a good amount of it (small chopping board full .. let's say somewhere between 4 & 6 cups worth), and tossed it into the pot.
Finally, after we knew the veggies were cooked to where we were happy with them, we added a bag of Egg Noodles, brought it all back to a boil, reduced the heat again, and let it cook for a good 10 minutes or so. You'll know it is ready when the aroma is so intoxicating that you're ready to dunk your head in the pot!!
I have to tell you, Campbell's has NOTHING on this homemade soup! I can't wait to try this again and actually make the noodles myself. Making the soup was really nice and easy too. Just taking already put-by food out and tossing it into the pot, cutting up some veggies and tossing them in, and then resting until it was done. This is the type of cooking that, when you're sick, is DEFINITELY NOT a chore or torture!!!! We had a lot more than we could eat ~ some leftovers went into the fridge for today's lunch, the rest went into the freezer for future meals. Some we shared with relatives who are also battling the cold. If you're not already an old hand at canning, I would recommend freezing the soup.
There is a reason chicken noodle soup is affectionately known as "the Jewish penicillin." When made with pasture-raised poultry (this is KEY and I can't stress the importance of that enough!!), the fat in the skin of the chicken is chock-full of CLA. Conjugated Linoleic Acid. This is some serious sick-germ-butt-kickin' stuff!!! This is NOT a time to be scared of some fat in the soup ~ you're sick and you want it!! For more info on CLA, scroll down to the post on making stock .. or also read "Real Food; what to eat and why" by Nina Planck.
If you haven't made this before, try it. You won't regret it and you won't give a second look at canned soup in the grocery aisle. When you get a little more of an appetite, pair it with some fresh-baked, homemade bread to help fill you up some more.
~And, just for the record: yes, we have a cold, no we haven't taken any OTC, chemically-filled, medicine. We did take some homeopathic cold-care medicine from Hyland's (check out my main blog to learn more there), but we only had 3 pills left, and we'll have to order more online. So, really, no meds at all. I've been sucking on some "herbal supplement" lozenges from Hall's (yes, yes, I know - but they were in the medicine closet & I am frugal!!), trying to get this dry hack down, but they don't seem to be helping. Other than that, lots of fluids (especially some raw milk!!! Vitamin C galore there!!), warm teas, and even some hot cocoa with whiskey in it!!
A close relative has the same cold, and loaded up on the meds. She seemed to really struggle with it, but after a long weekend, seems to be back on her feet. I think it is the meds that were making her struggle so hard with the cold, meds always seem to make you feel more awful while they're supposedly making you feel better.
Colds need time. Give your body time. Rest, get fluids, make up a big batch of homemade chicken (or turkey) noodle soup. Eat, drink, rest, repeat. Feel better soon and know that you haven't added anything other than goodness (and maybe some whiskey ... we can argue the merits of that another time) to your body.

Are You Eating Well?

2009-02-05T13:14:00.000-08:00
This is a question I would usually answer with a very emphatic YES! However, I've recently discovered I haven't been eating as well as I thought. How in the hell is that even possible I keep wondering?? I'm a pretty observant person and I'm particularly observant when it comes to my own body, so the revelation of not knowing what I had been eating was a big one for me. Let's go back a minute though.
I'm a pretty amazonian type of mama. I'm nearly 6' tall, my bones are huge, and I look like I can kick your butt. (Just for the record, I like to think I can too!! That's what is fun about us Mama Bears) So, I've never been someone who would EVER be considered petite or delicate. Then I got pregnant with my first son. As so happens to many first-time moms I gained a LOT of weight! Wow, being pregnant in fall ~ how could you not?? Mashed potatoes, god I love those, rolls, turkey, sweet potatoes, fried chicken, and then all the sweets that go along with that time of year. Yummy! There is a reason we gain weight! Then, I found out the harsh reality like new moms: just because the baby needs all that extra food and nutrition doesn't mean the little bugger will take it with him when he leaves you!! Apparently, so I've been told by much wiser moms, this will be a theme for later in life when they go to college and get a place of their own. I lost most of the weight I had gained and when I got pregnant with our second son I only gained 18 pounds which came off quickly.
Now we're up to Justin having a full-time job and me staying home with the boys. I have time, usually, to cook, and time to shop for good ingredients. We also have our home and our gardens, along with the Farmer's Market in walking distance. Life is good, but still our budget is short and tight. This is something I've managed quite well, I must admit, but I was very saddened when it wasn't really helping my waist-line. Which brings us back to the beginning of: but I eat healthy!!
Yes, I eat do eat healthy. I have a good knowledge of what foods are good and truly healthy for you, and try to eat as organically as possible. And, I don't eat very much. So I talked with my acupuncturist and he recommended that I keep a daily food journal. He told me how some foods, EVEN IF they're healthy foods in and of themselves can be inappropriate foods for an individual. He ALSO told me how a food "reaction" can take up to 72 hours to show up ~ as someone who has to deal with migraines, any connection between food and reactions in an important one!!
I began on New Year's Eve ~ might as well start when we're still in full celebrating mode and be honest about it! Here is what I found out: I don't eat appropriately! I don't eat breakfast and I often don't each lunch, unless I have a bowl of leftovers or a handful of cheese-crackers (our packaged food indulgence ~ the kids do love them as snacks!). I eat dinner which is often a casserole or one dish that is easy to prepare when the kids are around. I drink tea, both iced and warm, during the day ~ the iced is unsweetened.
It is really amazing when you begin to take the time to honestly document the food you eat. You can begin to see patterns form. You can realize the food groups you might be missing altogether. You can also find out about portions. Having grown up in the hey-day of "Super Size It!" I can admit that the notion of eating only a 1/2 cup of something is almost impossible for me to accept ~ probably as impossible as it would be for our grandparents and great-grandparents to imagine trying to eat a "large" or "Super Sized" fry!!
So now I have a new mission: to make sure that I get to eat some of these yummy and healthy foods I buy for my kids. To be able to say "this is Mommy's to eat, you eat yours" when my kids try to eat something I'm eating ~ this has always been the reason I don't fix myself food early in the day, we don't eat the same thing! To make sure I actually DO eat during the day, not just grab a quick handful of cheese crackers in between making bread, doing laundry, and the variety of other chores that make up my day.
If you're wondering about your waistline, or just your over-all health ~ go buy a little notebook and begin writing down what you eat. Don't judge yourself and don't lie! This was a little hard as I was finishing up my Christmas candy of Andes Mints and I hated having to acknowledge each time I snuck a couple. I don't feel guilty about them. Treating yourself is good from time to time. So be honest. When I say don't judge yourself I mean don't turn to self-hate, -shame and -blame, which is so easy for women to do. Acknowledge what your eating patterns are. Acknowledge that sometimes you just really need __X__ as a treat. Then, once a good month has gone past, you will start to see patterns, the more time goes by the more you'll really see it. You'll be able to see what is ok and what isn't. Remember, just because something is healthy doesn't mean it is appropriate for YOU. If you still want some help figuring out which way to go, take your journal to your doctor, your acupuncturist (Dancing Crane in Salem is my place and I love them!!! I highly recommend checking them out if you're ever wanting some acupuncture in Salem, VA!!!), or a nutritionist. They can see patterns and will know more about how foods can interact with bodies.
Whatever you do though: try and keep a positive attitude and try to focus on being healthy and eating appropriately for you. This will make all the difference

Mother Earth News is Eggselent!!!

2009-01-21T11:53:00.001-08:00

From the nest box to the carton! Above is a photo of our first full dozen eggs. The photos were taken on January 3rd of this year. We mark how many eggs we get a day, as well as what colors they are (to know who is laying), on the calendar. At the end of 2008 we had 72 eggs. We should easily surpass this by the end of February this year, but still it is a number we were proud to get to!
I wanted to share with you the latest egg-news from Mother Earth News. For those who aren't familiar with Mother Earth News, they rock!! I was lucky to be given a collection of their older magazines, and we both liked them so much we got a subscription (our only magazine subscription too!). I highly recommend this magazine to anyone interested in becoming a little more connected with the world around them.
As you will know by the link in the right-hand column on this page, Mother Earth News did a research study on free-range/pasture-raised eggs vs. general supermarket eggs. The results of it blew me out of the water! Now, they've found out more!! Here is the link for the new results: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Relish/Pastured-Eggs-Vitamin-D-Content.aspx?blogid=1508&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email
Here is a quick glimpse at their findings:
In the past, we’ve found that eggs from hens raised on pasture, as compared to those commercially raised factory farm eggs, contain:

• 1⁄3 less cholesterol
• 1⁄4 less saturated fat
• 2⁄3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene

Now we’re looking at vitamin D, which many of us do not get enough of because we don’t spend any time outdoors, and even when we do we use sunscreen that blocks vitamin D production. Eggs are one of the few food sources of naturally occurring vitamin D, and we wondered if true free-range eggs might be higher in this important vitamin, too. Our latest tests show that pastured eggs have anywhere between 4 to 6 times as much vitamin D as typical supermarket eggs.

WOW!!!!!! To say I am blown away is an understatement!! I'm not surprised, as I fully believe in the difference between "real food" and "industrialized food" - you simply can't mess with things so much and not expect it to have an impact!
If you don't raise chickens - look into it! They're fun to raise and keep, and aren't as difficult as you might think. In fact, most all of our initial concerns have proven to be baseless. Check your local city ordinances and zoning, you'll be pleasantly surprised that you may be allowed to have some! If you still can't raise your own, find someone locally who does. Don't be scared to ask them questions about how they raise their chickens ~ most people will appreciate the interest you're showing in something they've devoted time and energy into! Whatever you do, don't EVER buy standard grocery store eggs again!!!! Unless otherwise noted, they're raised in very tiny cages and treated horribly. Bad for the bird, bad for the Earth, and bad for your health!!
Thank you to Mother Earth News and their wonderful team for continuing to provide such helpful information!! Y'all are truly Eggs-elent!!

Quesadillas

2008-11-22T15:39:00.000-08:00

Or, as they're now known around here, "Pizzas with Hats" or also just "Hats." Mexican food wasn't often on the menu around here growing up, especially not anything more than the standard hard-shell tacos. I'm quite embarrassed to admit that in my now 31 years of living, tonight was the first time I had made quesadillas! AND THEY'RE SO EASY TO MAKE!!!
I won't list a recipe here, but I will give you the link to where I found the recipe I used. It is a wonderful recipe and very easy to follow: http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000226quesadilla.php

Some hints I will share that made this easier for a newbie:
1) I did use a cast-iron skillet. If you don't have one, do yourself a favor and go get one (http://www.lodgemfg.com/).
2) Have your ingredients ready. Just like you see on cooking shows, we mixed up our beans & corn ahead of time and had them in a bowl, ready to add when needed. Justin wanted freshly picked hot peppers (courtesy of Shannon) and onions in his, so he chopped them up and had them ready when I was ready for them. This saves a lot of "oh crap!" moments.
3) Do let them cool for a minute before eating. This not only saves on "shit, that's hot!" but also gives the ingredients a moment to set.
4) Don't be afraid of adding fun ingredients and spices!
5) Definitely have some "dippers" ready. Tonight we just used sour cream, but even the kids demanded they're own.
6) Don't think this is a hard dish to make. Like I said, I'm horrified that I have waited this long to make them. They are so much better, as most dishes are, when homemade. Even little kids like them, as they're nice and finger friendly!
Tristan & Shannon, who were very happy to get "Hats" for dinner & each gobbled it right up!

Homemade Chicken Stock

2008-11-04T13:32:00.000-08:00
I can't imagine actually buying chicken broth anymore, much less ever thinking anything store bought was good!! I was absolutely AMAZED to find out how easy it is to make and so have to share:
~Chicken Carcass (leftover bones, meat, this is especially easy after you've had a roast chicken)
~Leftover scraps of celery, garlic, onions, carrots, and herbs (I've even added potatoes).
Put all of these together in a large stock-pot, fill with water, bring to boil, then turn it back and let it simmer. I usually let it simmer most of the day. Once done, I drain off the stock and begin either freezing it or getting it ready for canning.
Obviously it is a ridiculously simple recipe. The amount of "scraps" I use depends on how much chicken is in there as well. More chicken carcass = more veggie scraps. In the photo you can see the peel of an onion resting on the spoon and also a celery stalk. What you can also see is the beautiful golden drops of fat.
The chicken in this stock is one of our Speckled Sussexes. It was raised naturally and "on pasture" (also known as our backyard). The fat in this chicken is high in CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) which is known for, among other things, being an immunity booster. It is an anti-oxidant with anti-cancer properties and also can help reduce body fat. Here is a great link for more info on CLAs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjugated_linoleic_acid
SO, this is the reason chicken broth and chicken soup are so good for you! It is easy to make, helps find new use for leftovers or scraps that would've otherwise gone to waste, and it boosts the nutritional content of whatever you use it in.
Here are some ideas for uses:
1)In place of water in such dishes as grits and rice, and even mashed potatoes!
2)As a broth on it's own ~ great for cold days, or colds in general!
3)The classic chicken noodle soup: just cook up some noodles in it and add some fresh veggies and chicken!

Zucchini Bread Recipe

2008-10-24T06:13:00.000-07:00
This is one of my most-requested recipes once people try this delicious and amazingly moist Zucchini Bread!

Zucchini Bread

2 1/2 cups sugar (as usual, I use turbinado)
3 cups all-purpose flour (Iuse whole wheat, or a natural white/wheat blend that we get locally)
1 cup oil (I use olive oil)
3 eggs
3 TB vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp cinnamon
1 cup nuts or chocolate chips (optional)

-Set oven at 350 degrees; Combine all ingredients and pour into greased pans (this makes wonderful muffins, small bread loaves, as well as regular size loaves). Cook till done. Cooking time will vary based on type of pan you used. Begin checking muffins & small loaves between 20 and 30 mins.
-Fun Tip: grate up extra zucchini during the summer, portion out 2 cups worth into a ziploc baggies & freeze, labeling well. This way you can make zucchini bread in the winter time as well!

Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix

2008-10-23T11:22:00.001-07:00
This recipe is one of my standard gifts at Christmas-time. It is wonderfully simple to make, stores seemingly forever (though it never lasts long enough around here to go bad!), and can be tailored to your own tastes.

Hot Cocoa Mix

2 cups nondairy coffee creamer
1 1/2 cups sugar (we use turbinado, and it works perfectly)
3/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk powder
1/4 tsp salt

-Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container. Use 2 TB per serving. Yield is about 36 servings. (We use more than 2 TB per serving, this is per individual taste)
-From Southern Living's 1981 Annual Recipes Book, page 287

We began using organic cocoa powder after reading how many pesticides are used on conventionally grown cocoa beans (a LOT!), and let me tell you .. GO ORGANIC!!! WOW!!! The difference in using organic cocoa vs. non-organic is night and day, and the taste is orgasmic! Now, I know this isn't the greenest of ingredients, but it is a fun way to personalize the cocoa: using flavored powdered creamers. In our last batch I used a Vanilla Caramel creamer. Yummy!